Before Beasts, There Was Ice
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Recovering from being blown out of the sky by a missile, Kai and the transformed Bladebreakers head out for the frozen tundra of Alaska to find the lonely Tala, who is hunted down for his connection to the Abbey assassins. But he isn't the only one waiting for them in the frozen land. Summary of previous books inside.
1. Previously

_What happened in previous books..._

Kai has kept it a secret from his team that what the Abbey had really been training him into wasn't just to become a beyblading pawn to his grandfather, but as a ninja-like, beyblade armed assassin. Kai has killed before, but intends to keep his skill and past buried and forgotten-until an unknown beyblader and a mysterious girl sing out, not only Tyson and Max's bitbeasts, but their souls as well. The singing girl, named Ayah, turns out to be just as much a prisoner as Tyson and Max's souls and nearly dies when she tries to avoid stealing Ray's soul as well. Not knowing she has survived, her captors leave Ayah alone long enough to give Kai a map to Tyson and Max's souls, to which he uses his bad-a beyblade assassin's skills to break in, slice the Achilles tendons of guards, avoid armed men, and escape with the souls and bitbeasts of his team mates.

In the second book, Kai has hopes that his incursion has been unnoticed, but he is soon distracted by his teammates adoption of the abandoned, injured Ayah, who is as beautiful as she is mysterious. Kai is not so quick to forget her inhuman abilities to control sound and sing out human souls. It doesn't help that he finds he isn't as immune as he'd like to be to her beauty and kindness, which he attributes to her inhuman qualities. When Tyson throws a homemade tournament for his birthday, Kai pays little attention to it, until Ayah leads him to a dark flight of stairs where another assassin, trained in the Abbey just as Kai was, is closing in for their kill. At the last minute Kai smashes their sharp assassin beyblades with Dranzer, but in the fight something strange happens and Kai is overwhelmed by Dranzer's explosion of flame. Ayah insists she just heard something with her strange, ultra sharp hearing, but as the flames die down and Kai finds himself once more in her arms, he finds himself trusting her less than ever. Nothing will harm his teammates, even if they happen to be gorgeous, gentle, and soft.

Come the opening of the third book, Kai is in the hospital suffering from severe burns. He demands to know what his ex-fellow Abbey assassins had to do with Ayah, and she doesn't know, but she is determined to stop them from harming the BladeBreakers. She offers to heal Kai, and in the process, lures him into a three day slumber. When he wakes up, not only is Ayah gone, his burns have completely healed, the president of the United States has been assassinated, and another assassin is waiting for him.

Kai is kidnapped and taken to a secret, underground bunker held by none other than a winged man who claims to be of the same species as Ayah, and who intends to use the abandoned Abbey assassins to clear the world of humankind so his own can flourish. Ayah is to be his Eve. But Kai, not keen on being anyone's captive, smashes his way to Ayah with the help of the also captive Tala. What Ayah and this...black angel are is made clear and Kai must defeat Cain, who so easily cowed the once fearless Abbey assassin's with his ability to kill if anyone on Earth is to survive. With the help of the Bladebreakers (who appear out of the blue because they're obsessive-compulsive friends like that and aren't likely to leave one of their own in trouble), along with the boosting ability of Ayah's voice, Kai burns Cain to death, but at the cost of burning himself as well.

In the fourth book, Kai comes to in the opposite state he blacked out in-freezing to death, and on a boat heading back for the mainland. Before his companions can celebrate, Max suddenly dives overboard and vanishes into the ocean. The others rush to the hospital, and Kai, always the lone wolf and only wanting to be warm, dodges going and head back to the dojo, where he, in a fit of desperation on finding water makes it worse, starts a fire and dives into it. He wakes up a scarlet, winged denizen of fire, to the surprise and delight of Tyson and Ray, who thought him and Max dead. Ayah also goes through drastic transformations. Since Kai can't find Dranzer, he figures they have become one, and tries to dissuade an excited Tyson that turning into a flying, inhuman freak isn't as cool as it sounds. Kai, and possibly the still missing Max, will never lead normal lives. Cain and the assassination of Ayah's family are already testaments that there is no room in the world for the kind of beings they have become.

Of course Kai has no time or patience to deal with his newly discovered feelings for Ayah. He already knows a man raised from a boy for cruelty and killing could never have the tenderness to make a woman happy, let alone a family. So what more is there to say?

In the fifth book, Kai has spent the last month furiously trying to regain his lost physic and strength that his unplanned transformation took from him. On returning to Tyson's, he is faced with the reality of his love for Ayah, as well as his anxieties concerning his own future and that of his teams. Just as a fully alive and also transformed Max works with the others to go to LA so his mother can research them, Tala calls with a warning of nuclear catastrophe. The world treaty ceasing the production or existence of firearms has been shattered by the American president being assassinated and the discovery of Biovolt's Abbey and their trained assassins. They must get out. But no sooner have Kai, Tyson, and Ayah found a boat to escape on to America, they are captured by a group that know far too well what they are, and how to keep them contained. Facing dismemberment in the face of science or whatever these hunters want from them, it seems to be the end of the line. A harsh reality that they are no longer seen as human faces them.

But then Tyson, still human, and therefore underestimated, manages to wriggle them loose. But they're in the middle of the ocean, on a ship full of their captors with no qualms about killing one or two of them. With bullets and darts flying, Tyson takes a stand with Dragoon, and Kai takes the fall for the bullets heading his way.

The last thing Kai perceives is the bright blue light of Dragoon and Ayah pulling out too many poisoned darts from his ribs and chest. Then all goes black, with little hope for waking up.

But wake up he does, in the midst of a typhoon. Those on the ship who weren't killed by Dragoon are killed by the storm, and Kai and Ayah survive by the skin of their nails. They are given a time to recover before the egg of stormwinds hatches and a scaled, draconic Tyson is born, as energetic (and hungry) as ever. With no idea where they are, Kai sets out for his first unassisted flight into the sky, where he spots an incoming Max, who has come into his own as Draciel of the Sea. With Max's arrival comes the knowledge that their ship is sinking, and fast, and they set out in nothing more than a life boat, depending on Max's power in water to get them to land. But Max is still mortal and passes out from exertion. Kai once more finds himself the lone protector of his exhausted, sleeping friends.

When they wake up washed up on land, it seems peace and safety has finally come to their team of...whatever they were. But just as they were setting out to find a good, roasted seafood breakfast, they are surrounded by gunpoint and led into, not just a hunter's ship, but into a hidden United States Military base, with an entire, high-tech lab dedicated to piecing them apart bit by bit, and they aren't all concerned with human rights. After all, the Bladebreakers aren't human anymore.

It's the last straw on a very strained camels back, and Kai bursts into a panicked plume of flame. Let it all burn. If this world was set on destroying his team, it could burn as well. But he is only partially successful in burning down the lab. His flame somehow consciously avoids burning Ayah, but kills a few of the men. In disgusted vengence, the marshal of the army base and chief of the scientists decide to sacrifice Kai to the violent transformation of Ray, who has been kidnapped from LA for their experimentation.

Things don't go according to plan. Even after coercing Ayah to sing the song and filling the chamber with electricity for Ray to feed on, Ray transforms almost instantaneously and overloads the lab. Using super speed he takes out the men with Ayah and works out an escape route through a ventilation shaft. But it is too small for Kai and his huge wings, so they are separated, and Kai must break through rows of soldiers with his fire and Abbey taught assassin skills. Yet just as he makes outside and takes to the air, anti-air missiles whiz past him from the base in an uproar, and he is forced to take shelter near the fuming, steaming vent of the island's volcano. No sooner does he take shelter when he inadvertently falls into the shaft to the waiting lava below.

He bursts out transformed, brilliant, and more or less an apocalyptic comet of intense heat. Plants burst into flame about him, bullets melt, people are crisped, and the air about him glows.

He finds his team surrounded by soldiers and must be careful not to kill them with his heat as he does their attackers. He uses his heat to destroy the armies battleships and leads his team to the only boat he left untouched-a tug boat. Just as he is leading them back out to see and wondering how to turn off his blistering heat when an air missile, too large to be melted by his heat, explodes him out of the sky and into the sea below, where the cold water threaten to finish off what the partially melted missile didn't.

Fished out by his aquatic teammate, Max, he is patched up and ordered to bedrest. But their is a greater wound on Kai's soul and mind than physically. He has just murdered scores of men in the defense of his teammates by doing nothing more but flying by and breathing. He was also condemned to death by the martial for his Abbey assassin upbringing. Horrified at himself, Kai attempts to jump back into the ocean and commit suicide, but is stopped by his best friend, Tyson, who attempts his first flight into the sky to catch him.

It is in the aftermath of this emotional and physical throw that opens up the eighth installment of "Before Beasts"...


	2. Before Beasts Series Order

**Order of the "Before Beasts" series:**

 _Sound_  
 _Fire_  
 _Wind_  
 _Water_  
 _Metal_  
 _Storms_  
 _Lightning_  
 _Ice_  
 _Light_  
 _Time_


	3. The Silent Scream

Before Beasts, There Was Ice

Book 8

By Lowe Fantasy

1

The empty cargo hold vibrated with the pounding of Rachmoninov's first concerto. What sounded like sixteen keys of a piano being played at the same time with a full symphony, complete with brassy trumpets, stung his ears as good as any blaring rock music, but with less cultural grating.

In truth, he didn't know why he was trying to block out Ayah's hearing. It wasn't like he was muttering dark secrets to himself or having a special moment with bowel movements. He was just doing his usual workout routine, hung upside from a rail on the ceiling using only the muscles of his good leg, which was screaming at him nearly as loud as the injured one.

 _Thirty-eight,_ he thought as he curled his chin to his knees. He crunched his wings at the same time, though they had gotten use to their own weight by now. _Thirty-nine. Forty._

Perhaps having Ayah confirm that she had heard the entire argument between Kai and Tyson before Kai threw himself out into the sky had to do with it. Or maybe it was all the naked time he had spent in public over the past month. Or being essentially pushed into a specimen box for a gaggle of scientists to gawk at. Or, hey, having to sleep with four other people in the same bed when he had personal bubble issues and had to deal with being stalked by one of said four people over the past week.

Oh, not to mention Ayah having to remount a pretty much pantless him to redo the stitches he had torn on his bleeding thigh.

Yeah. He needed some privacy.

 _Eighty-four…Ninety-three…hundred and one…_

The first concerto had died down to a grand finale that he felt through the rail in his knees. The next concerto was far more gentle, however. Too gentle and soft for his taste.

So, after letting himself hang for a minute, feeling the burn of his muscles stretch, he dropped, flip, and float down to the floor some twenty feet below. The CD player was in the observation box on ground level, and he limped his way to it swiping his brow more out of habit than the need to get sweat out of his eyes. Only heat waves obscured his vision now.

 _Damn it, what if I melt something in the player?_ The silicon in circuits had a much lower melting point then metal, after all. That's why they always told you to not leave computers and other devices in the sun or in a hot car.

So he stopped and did a few, one-legged, hoping line touch sprints, hoping the concerto would eventually pick back up into Rachmoninov's usual boisterous trumpeting. When it built up, just to die away again, he considered dosing himself with the emergency water hose next to the door and changing the CD. Maybe there'd be something blare worthy in the little case some poor schmuck had left behind.

The decision was made for him when Tyson all but kicked the door of the cargo bay open.

"Oy, spy guy, we got a situation you're gonna love." He blinked at the site of Kai's naked, stitched up thigh, and let out a low whistle. "Ayah's gonna be pissed with you."

Kai let out a sigh and used his wings to heft himself over to the hose, his good leg more or less done with him. Heaven forbid someone knock for once. But hey, what was privacy or courtesy when you were an endangered species mutated from humans by a girl vibrating your spinning top with a spirit beast inside? No, no, that was too much.

The water hissed into steam as it hit his flesh. Good thing he hadn't been wearing his pants. Something he had found after being 'reborn,' in a sense, from the volcano was that it had gotten much easier to heat up, and therefore, burn his clothing. The sort of loin cloth of feathers his body had grown didn't do much, but it hid the necessities, and as long as he kept his tail down, his rear was covered too.

But still…again to the knocking…

Tyson let out a low whistled follow by some explicatory drowned out by another upheaval of piano keys, trumpets, and strings.

When he pulled himself from the chilly, and oddly refreshing, spray, Tyson had crossed the cargo bay and leaned on the wall beside him, eyebrows raised.

"Doesn't that hurt?" he asked.

"Only at first. I think it's the quick drop in temperature, not the water," he turned off the flow and shook his head. Within seconds he was nearly dry, feathers and all. "It was so bad when I got thrown into the ocean because I was in that phoenix form, hot enough to melt bullets. That's a really quick drop in temperature."

"Yeah. Could crack steel," said Tyson. When Kai gave him a questioning look, he said, "Gramps taught me a bit about sword forging. Salt water's the worse. It's good to know I won't be killing you if I spill my pop the wrong way."

Kai snorted and went about finding his pants and bandages and turning off the music. The cargo jeans were where he left them on the office chair next to the CD player, which he switched off with more than a little regret. Good-bye sweet privacy.

"So, problem?" asked Kai, picking up his recently modified shirt. He had to step through it to put it on and had to tie it behind his neck when he was done, but it did the trick. Fully clothed. He had managed to find a crutch too in the ship's tiny medical office, which his spent good leg thanked him for.

"We reached the gas station and it looks like a freaking ant hill, just like the last one."

Kai let out a grunt of frustration. "On that little spit of a port?"

"Must be tuna season or something."

That was a problem. Max and Ray had already concluded they wouldn't have enough gas to make it to the station behind them, meaning they were running on fumes as it was. They had figured Max could always steer them into port, as long as they could find a port to gas up without too many eyes to notice their extra appendages.

Kai shook his hair again, but the dampness had fled to the tips. Only a few drops fell out as he crutched his way to Tyson, who took a step back.

"Dude, not too close, I can still feel you. Damn, you sure you don't need some more time under the hose?"

Kai didn't mention that the pain came back if he stayed under too cold water for too long. Spilled pop and all. "We need Max and Ray to head in and get a schedule on the place, see when it's most empty."

"Uh, midnight? Maybe?"

"Boats work with the tides, Tyson, not your sleep schedule."

"Oh, my sleep schedule's all over the place, but I get what you mean. So, we find a time when it's most empty, then what? What do I get to do?"

Kai folded his arms the best he could with crutches under his pits and raised an eyebrow. "What can you do?"

Tyson gaped at him, as though deeply affronted. "I can fly like an eel in the water and lift Max for ten whole seconds."

…."Can you control the wind? Maybe a light breeze?"

"Uh, maybe if I whip my tail around a bit—hey! Don't just walk away from me like I'm some rookie! It pissed me off back then and it pisses me off now!"

Kai ignored him. He just kept on walking. Like always, Tyson didn't show (or was it find?) his true power or strength unless put under pressure. Of course, a lot of people were like that, but the amount of pressure Tyson had to be put under had to be world bending. He was a guy always needing to be challenged in order to reach any of his potential, otherwise his ambition sparked up only when it was fun.

Irritating.

"Come on, I can fly faster than you or Ayah, doesn't that mean anything?"

Yes, because a flying dragon was what they needed for a stealth mission.

Ugh. He wanted the Rachmoninov back.


	4. Fire Bath

**My grandma gave me a sort of handmedown book maker machine. I was thinking I might make these Beasts stories into little books. Would anyone be interested in them? I think I could make them for, I dunno, $5 with soft cover and $10 with hard cover. You'd have to pay for shipping, but they'd be such little books it wouldn't be much at all. I'd edit them before hand, of course, and add in whatever you like (pictures, signature, personal dedication, etc)**

 ***shrug* Just an idea.**

2

Kai had come to discover a new side of Ayah over the past week. There was the ordinary, vanilla flavored anger, in which she acted as anyone would with a little above average levels of self-control and calm. And then there was the kind of rage that overwhelmed her when she was fueled by concern and the inability to protect who she loved through their own choices, like Kai's to work out despite having been hit by a missile the week before.

She didn't yell. She didn't scream. She just looked at him with icy blue eyes hard as diamonds and a high pitch, almost imperceptible wail would fill the room until she opened her mouth.

"I can knock you out," she said, quietly. She was always very quiet when she was this kind of angry—though Kai suspected the high pitch tone was actually a type of closed mouth scream for her, being the avatar of sound and all.

Kai didn't say anything. The first time he had told her she wasn't his mother, he really had ended up knocked out, along with everyone else in the room at the time. She knew just the right pitch to give them lights out. Kai was beginning to suspect this is what she had done back in the island bunker rather than killing a room full of men. Tyson and Ray, who had been residents of said room at the time, were not happy with him and happily helped her belt him down to a bed to redo his stitches—and leave him there to writhe in horrid boredom and hunger for the rest of the day.

"If something is bothering you, you need to learn to talk about it rather than working your brains out," she continued, going down almost to a low murmur.

Kai didn't miss Max sliding out of the control room with the others. He had come up to work out a plan about the gas, but apparently that would have to wait until he appeased the woman of the group, and he wasn't sure how that was going to happen. It made him angry with them for ditching him. Didn't they have more pressing matters than Ayah's 'Heal-Kai' agenda?

"I can't change overnight," he murmured, just as low. No, he was not terrified.

"I know you turned on music to blast me out," she said. "You couldn't even keep it to upper body stuff, did you?"

"I didn't do it to block—"

"Then why did you do it?"

He let out a quick, hiss of breath. He hated this whole accountability crap and was dying to snap out at her. But a poignant voice in his mind reminded him of the day of complete silence and tears she had shed after he had attempted to jump into the ocean. He deserved this. He had lost their trust in his ability to take care of himself.

So he took a slow, steadying breath, and said, with as much honesty in his words as possible, "I just wanted some privacy." It came out as a plea and he winced. Maybe it was a good thing the others had fled.

She blinked, probably hearing all of that and more, then sighed as well.

"But you did push your leg. I can hear it."

Just do it, man. "I'm sorry."

"No you aren't."

He was now. "Will you believe me when I said I didn't use it? I went as easy as possible."

She snorted. "You always push yourself, it's like your drug. Kai Hiwatari take it easy is like Tyson taking it slow during dinner." Her eyes narrowed.

He knew what was coming before she had even opened her mouth and threw his hands up. "Look, the others need me to help with getting gas, you can't knock me out."

"I wasn't going to," she said with a sniff.

He hesitated. Did he dare ask what she was going to do then?

The high pitch keening filled the cabin again. Her jaw was clenched. Then, just as suddenly, it died away and her expression fell. Her eyes dropped to the floor, but not before he could catch their sudden brightening.

"Whatever," she whispered. "I'll be listening in. Just tell me what to do."

And she brushed past, not allowing even a feather to touch him.

He didn't understand how he still felt like she had smacked him. Was this a girl thing? Ugh, no, this was a guilt thing, and he didn't even have any ammo to strike back.

He knew he shouldn't have done those ladder sprints, one legged hop or not.

Once the coast was clear, the other three came in, doing their best to look as though nothing happened, though Ray did give Kai a flash of disbelief.

"Alrighty!" said Tyson in his usual cheesy cheeriness. "Super Ninja Kai! Bless us with your great wisdom."

So he pushed aside his guilt and took a seat at the wheel with a groan.

"Ray and Max should do most of it. Max can cross the water and hide in it, and Ray is fast enough to get anything we need done. Ayah can follow you two to pass messages and to keep an ear out for any alarms."

"Such as?" Ray asked.

"Such as people catching on to what we're doing, or what we are. First thing we need to do is find the clearest time for us to pull in. It's a busy port, but we need to try. Max and Ray will head in tonight and check the guard shack for docking times and report back. If it turns out the time we need to head in is sooner rather than latter, you'll call down Ayah and have her report back. She'll be high up with the ocean fog to cover her whiteness, but she should hear you."

"Okay, I could have come up with that," said Max mercilessly—he still had yet to fully forgive Kai for their spat in the kitchen. "But how do we get the boat in and gassed up? None of us have ever even filled up a boat before, and we only have the manual to go off of."

"That's why Ray will be taking the guard's place the night we move in. He has the easiest traits to cover up and can have the guard knocked out before he even knows what happens. Then, change into his clothes, see what you can do about any security cameras they have, which I doubt they will, and give Ayah the okay. That should give us time to figure out how to fill up."

"What if an alarm comes up while she's passing a message?" said Tyson. "You should have me up there too. She can hear the message and pass it on to me, and I'll take it to the boat."

"How will we know she hears us?" asked Ray.

"Try out some distances today so she knows how high to fly and how loudly you need to speak. Then you can come up with a signal phrase so she knows to tune in. You'll have to go on trust after that. Max can do any heavy lifting that is needed like bringing the boat in."

"What about you?" Ray asked.

Kai snorted. "I just got chewed out for doing pull ups and I sweat heat when I fly. It wouldn't be a stretch to say I glow, not to mention all this girly gold shimmery crap."

He got a momentary pleasure as his teammates chuckled. Even Max gave him a gratifying grin.

"Besides," he continued. "Someone has to watch the ship."

"Oh nah, Casper can do it," said Tyson without much feeling. "So I can fly up with Ayah?"

Kai sighed. "Yes. Fine. But stay high—and it would be even more helpful if you can figure out how to bring in a breeze or something. If needs be I can make fog, but I'd need you to push it in."

The three boys stared at him. He wondered at their intelligence for a moment before saying, "Fire plus water equals steam."

"Oooh," they said collectively.

"Now, we'll wait for night fall and then Max, Ray, and Ayah will head in."

"Should we wear black?" said Tyson, sounding far too excited. "Maybe make some ninja masks? Dude, I'm totally writing a theme song."

"Whatever. Though, Ray, it's not a bad idea to cover up that white fur of yours."

He gave Kai a thumbs up. "Duly noted."

"So, I swim Ray over and then, what, follow him under the docks the best I can?" said Max,

"And stay out of sight."

"I'm guessing a shanty or something is out of the question?"

"Only close to shore. You and Ray will be more hidden if you just give him a lift. But you can take the rowboat most of the way. I know you'll be fine in the water, Max, but Ray would probably get hypothermia within a half hour. Leave the boat before you get into sight."

"Espionaaaaage," sang Tyson under his breath in a high falsetto.

Kai grimaced. "Anyone got any suggestions? Anything else we need to worry about?"

Ray lifted a hand. "Food. All we got is non-perishables and seafood."

"Hey!" said Max, sounding a bit offended as it had been him who had labored to get them the crab and fish they had gotten to eat.

"I could kill for some milk, or even an apple," said Tyson. "Or cheese. Man, god above, cheese."

"I think we got some dry apple chips," said Ray. "But I think I'll try to scavenge something too while I'm looking for the list. It should take us another, what, week to get to the Tellar, Alaska? We'll be wanting something."

"Forget that," said Kai, then gave Ray an uneasy smile. "You're going to have to steal, which could bring unwanted attention. But, if you are still willing to, cash is what you want to aim for. It's untraceable, and there's going to be a time when we can't just steal what we need. We have the food we need for now, perishable or not."

All three of them sighed. Kai felt it too. Seafood and dried goods were wearing on him as well.

"Great, if that's all," he turned to go. A cold, North scented breeze had swept through that afternoon, and being out in it the short time to take the shortest route to the cabin had given him an uncomfortable chill. He doubted the water would get hot enough to stave it off, so he was thinking of scavenging around for some flammables.

"Do us a favor and don't do anything more to upset her," said Ray to his back.

Max cracked his neck. "Guess you and I should get to dinner, eh Ray? Man the deck, Tyson?"

"Aw man, really? Why can't I be on food duty this time?"

"Because you eat whatever I have before I can make it," said Ray.

Max scoffed. "A whole packet of dried milk? Really?"

"But it's so boring up here. The ship knows where it's going. It's just water, it's not like we're going to hit anything."

Trusting Max and Ray to sort out imminent death from the hands of an ADD Tyson, Kai set the rubber ends of his crutches towards the last place he'd seen something that could hold fire.

When he found a bag of charcoal in the kitchen, along with a pile of spent cardboard boxes, he hung there, his leg throbbing dully, and wondered what to do next. It wasn't like he could carry that 100 pound bag of rocks with his gimp leg and an angry girl listening for his every move.

So he sighed, moved a crutch from his bad side to his good side, and gingerly sat down. If he waited a bit, Max and Ray would be down to make dinner and they could help him, despite how much he hated the idea of actually needing it. Ugh, invalid. And he didn't even have any broken bones.

Max must have jumped straight into the ocean, for Ray came in alone.

"Hey. Need some help?"

Kai grunted. "You know that steel drum on deck that was holding PBC pipes and trash?"

"Yeah…?"

He sighed again. In the name of guilt and invalidicy…and pain. "Could you…help me get this bag of coals and cardboard boxes into it? Or just the coals might do."

"You want a fire? What for?"

"I'm cold."

Ray just sort of gave him a funny look, which he hated, then shrugged, probably deciding to trust him with not burning down the whole ship, as he came forward and hefted the monster bag of coal over his shoulder with ease. Kai refrained from glaring in jealousy. He could have done that.

Even though Ray wasn't watching as he walked out the kitchen, Kai did his best to get back to his feet and crutches with grace.

Once they'd gotten all the junk out of the drum, Ray's claws made quick work of opening the bag. Before he poured it in, though, he took some bricks used to hold down tarps on the deck and put the steel drum on them so it didn't touch the deck, even if Kai doubted it could have hurt the metal. Once all the black rocks had fallen in, Kai gathered heat in his mouth like one gathers spit and spat. The golden drop of flame took to the coals and spread out like wildfire on dry grass.

"That's still cool," said Ray with a half smile. "Need anything else?"

"Hold on a second."

When Kai started to strip, Ray flinched.

"You're not getting in there—of course you're getting in there. A fire bath?"

"I'm cold."

"I could always boil water if the bath doesn't get hot enough for you."

"I'm just cold. I don't need a bath."

"Okay, but how are you going to get in and out of that thing?"

Kai just looked at Ray, who seemed to get whatever from their exchange and sighed.

"Alright, I'll help you in. But you're on your own getting out, kay?"

In answer, Kai spat more flame into the drum. It wasn't nearly as hot as he wanted it yet. He could already taste the slightly chemical edge to the flames. Wood would taste so much better.

As always, peeling out his long tail feathers took the longest. Ray had the decency not to help him unroll his bandages off for the second time that day. There was no blood, but the flesh around the stitches was puffy and red.

"I hope that doesn't get infected," said Ray with a grimace.

"Fire should help," said Kai, rustling his wings and bracing himself. He looked at Ray, who crouched down next to the drum and set his hands together to take his foot. Kai inwardly cried for independence and took only a moment to decide which leg to put there. Then, with a hand to brace himself on his friend's shoulder and his wings spread for balance, Ray boosted him up and he clumsily fell into the drum.

Thankfully, it didn't tip over. Thankfully, also, his stitches didn't instantly burst from catching his weight on coals. As he looked down into the growing fire licking his still purple bruised side of his body, he forgot all about the pain of it and let out an involuntary explosive sigh of pleasure.

Warm. It felt so nice. It was almost like leaning over the volcano vent again—the much needed dip into a hot bath.

"That good, huh?" Ray was smiling.

"You have no idea." Kai managed to somehow tuck his wings in, which filled the drum to the brim with feathers and gave his leg much needed support. The growing fire, rather than being smothered, took to his feathers like starter fluid and crawled heat up to his neck, making him shiver.

Ray jumped back at the explosion of flames, gawking.

"This is so surreal. You're catching on fire, and I'm not freaking out and spraying you with water."

Kai just grunted and leaned his chin on a cushion of feathers on the edge of the drum. He'd closed his eyes and was all but humming.

"I guess I'll just go get dinner ready…then."

"Thank you, Ray. Seriously." Kai didn't even have to try that hard to say it. It was like every muscle in his body, mental and physical, were uncoiling.

"You're welcome."

With that, Ray left him to the empty front deck, with only the hush of the ocean and the crackle of the fire for company.

Bad feelings gone.


	5. Of Children by the Fire

3

Probably because he fell asleep, as the next thing he knew he was being awoken by the sound of Ayah landing on the deck in front of him. The sky had darkened from late afternoon to twilight, and the coals beneath his feet had all managed to get to a rich, yellow state. His fire bath spread amber across the deck.

She only came close enough for her voice to be heard, rubbing her hands over her arms. She had also dug up a pair of BDU's, though they were a few sizes too big for her. Luckily, they were adjustable, but in Kai's drowsy, relaxed state, he couldn't help noting how cute she looked in them. "We'll be leaving soon. Ray, Max and I."

"You figure out what distance you need to be at, then?"

She nodded, not looking at him. He frowned and straightened, stretching and popping his neck as he did so. His leg felt loads better. Seeing Ayah, however, reminded him of another ache, one he had no idea how to fix.

So he went with the first thing he could think of. "Come closer to the fire. You look cold."

Surprisingly, she did so, though with small, minced steps, and still not looking at him.

He sighed. "What do you want me to do?"

Ayah flinched and stole a look at him before going back to her feet. "About what?"

"I don't know, I'm not…I'm not good at these things." He squirmed a bit in his drum. "You're upset. All week you've been. I know it's my fault, but I still…I still don't know what I'm supposed to do to make it better. I'm sorry for—for straining my leg and…the music—damn it. Never mind." He ducked his head down. He shouldn't have said anything. Of course she was still upset. He had thrown self-control to the wind and decided to cater to his own whim for privacy. He hadn't even thought about whether blocking her out with the Rachmoninov would have hurt her feelings, and he had gotten so caught up in the usual burn of the work out that he had minimalized the cost of using his legs.

So early on and he'd already made her miserable. Well, he had warned her. That didn't help him feel less sucktastic, though.

"I love you."

Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn't been that. He felt his insides jump.

She wasn't smiling, though. The softness was still there, but it was a sad, defeated sort of softness along with a cock of her head. Her waist length, pearly white hair, in a single, long braid, had been draped over her shoulder and reflected the fire like glass. Her lashes had even turned gold and bright.

The jumping precursor to a dance turned to weight within him. He felt himself melting, and not in a good way.

"Ayah…" She had to stop looking at him like that. She could be angry, she could scream, she could even hit him, anything but that.

"I've seen everyone I love vanish and die," she said. "And…I don't think I'll live through that again. I don't even know how I did in the first place, we with our weak hearts."

"You're heart is anything but weak," he found himself saying.

The corner of her mouth rose in a wry, dry smile. "Maybe my dad was just telling a legend then." The corner dropped. "I've never seen my kind die from heartbreak. But…" she straightened, and the wilted softness twisted into a plea. "Kai, I will be the first if anything happens to you. I mean it."

"But we…"

"We haven't done anything yet? You think we have to have sex for me to love you so much?" She wasn't even phased by his twitch.

He withdrew the hand that had slipped out to reach for her.

That was it, then.

When he didn't say anything, she turned to leave. Then it came to him.

"Wait, Ayah."

"I'll try to wear a coat."

"No, listen. Dranzer spoke with me back when I…she showed me children."

Her head jerked back, and those brilliant blue eyes showed up as her pupils contracted in the bright firelight. The color made the question in his mind a certainty.

"They were our children."

She turned to him fully now, eyes wide and lips parting in wonder.

"Our…?"

"I think there were three, maybe four, but there was one little girl—with your eyes and my hair, and she was so serious, and a little baby with your eyes too."

"Kai, slow down—"

"We're going to make it through this." He gulped hard, suddenly trembling within his feathers. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you or the others, no matter what. Even if it risks the world."

Her mouth fought into a smile, even as she said, "The element of fire can't predict the future."

"That isn't the only time I saw them. I had a dream a while back, I…" he gulped hard. He was getting carried away.

But her smile won out, broader than he had ever seen them and crinkling her eyes into her round cheeks.

One of the boys called her name in the distance. She took a step back.

"Time to go. I'll keep them safe, okay?"

"They can keep themselves safe. Worry about yourself."

"Alright."

And with a graceful swoop of silver-white feathers dancing with the gold of his fire, she pushed into the air and vanished into the foggy night.


	6. Storm Practice

**Okay, so there is an interest for books. I'll get to figuring that out for ya'll. In the meantime, enjoy your weekly chapter!**

4

It was much easier than it should have been. Kai didn't even have to leave his fire. Tyson returned to steer the ship, Max slid it into port near the end, aided by the incoming tide, and Ray and Ayah worked together to keep a look out. Filling up the beast was surprisingly straight forward too, and they were all out to sea and in bed by the time the gray line of dawn hit the horizon.

When Kai finally got out of his fire, the coals had been burnt down to useless gray dust and his entire body was stiff from disuse. His leg, however, had more or less healed to a pink scar, which was good because the stitches had been burnt away long ago. His bruises had faded to a sickly yellow. On the downside, he was covered head to foot to the tip of his wings in gray soot.

"So pretty much back to normal. Your white hair was weirding me out," said Max as he slapped a rag around Kai's shoulder, where it hissed at him. "Whoa! I thought you said you were cooled off?"

"I thought I was," he said as he took up the rag. His fingers must have been cooler than his shoulder, for no steam or hissing came from that and he got to work wiping off the ash as he made his way to the bathroom. As the cold wind blew over them, he shuddered, almost painfully.

Tyson, who had come down to help Max unwedge Kai from his den of coal ash and burnt steel, frowned. He had Kai's clothes slung over his arm.

"You sure you're going to be alright in Alaska?"

"The ocean keeps temperatures rather temperate," said Kai evasively, wrapping his wings about himself, even though it left his back and legs exposed. His lower backed cramped from the effort to keep his tail tucked as close as possible to his thighs as he walked.

"Yeah, but the town you're aiming for is pretty close to that red line that means everything is ice and stays ice. Maybe one of us should go on ahead to find Tala."

Kai harrumphed. He would have loved to let them, but he couldn't trust them to find Tala with his underground capabilities. None of them had training in the ice and snow either. For heaven's sake, Tyson went around frozen Russia in shorts during their first world tournament.

Max, who had to trot a bit to keep up with Tyson's lengthened stride and Kai's urgency to get inside, came up to Kai's other side. "I'd do alright, I think. I've dove rather deep in the ocean and it gets freezing down there. Ice is just another form of water, right? And I can still wear coats and the like right unlike the rest of you."

"Hey! I do fine," broke in Tyson.

"No," said Kai firmly. "Stop freaking out. I'd like to see you not shiver in this wind butt-naked. I'm not sensitive or anything, it's just quick drops in temperature."

"Right." Max didn't believe him.

Kai shot him a flat glare that never worked on Tyson, but usually did it for Max. Sure enough, the turtle drew back.

"I'm doing it," he said. "And I'm not taking you lot with me. I'd just have to take care of you the entire way."

As he reached for the handle to the cabin they shared when they weren't sleeping up in the control deck, Tyson shoved into his side, making him stumble.

"Stop acting like you're the boss of us, Kai, and just accept that we're going to take care of you too."

In response, he slammed the door in their faces...and accidentally got the end of one of his too long tail feathers. Swearing and blushing, he quickly opened the door to let it loose, but the damage had been done. He could hear Max snickering.

"Stupid feathers," he pulled them around and looked around for a knife.

"Forget something?" Tyson's hand had slipped around the door, holding his clothes.

He snatched them up and just stopped himself from body tackling the door closed on Tyson's arm. Instead, he stomped to the bathroom and locked himself in nice and tight.

Ayah would be happy to learn that Kai didn't find a knife or scissors to hack off his tail feathers by the time he had washed off the ash and dressed. On stepping outside, he felt a light, wet pattering on his head and looked up. The fog that had crowded the morning had turned to a heavy overcast.

He frowned.

Luckily, the storm denizen was munching away on something fried and flakey when he stepped into the control cabin. A new wave of irritation rode up as he eyed Tyson's feet on the controls. The windshield wipers were going and everything.

"Shouldn't you be practicing?" His words came out like ice.

"Practicing what?" Tyson said through a mouthful. "Dude, have you tried Ray's Aji Furai? It's freaking amazing."

Kai ate the few feet between them and smacked Tyson's feet of the controls. Tyson started to protest—before Kai cut him off by grabbing the back of his shirt and pulling him off the seat.

"Just get outside and try to do something about this weather before it becomes dangerous."

"Come on, Kai, it's just a little rain. Besides, it's my turn at boat watch."

"I'll take it."

"Budge off, I don't want to go outside, it's cold!"

Kai's irritation bumped up three levels, but he just looked at Tyson. The dragon gulped and wiped crumbs from his face.

"Right. Rain could get worse, and we're no sailors and you'll die if you get flung into the sea."

Kai flinched. "More like Max won't be able to carry us all if the boat goes down—will you use what little common sense you have? Go."

"Alright, alright, I'm going." Tyson ended this statement with a loud crunch of fried fish and left grumbling through it about tight-assed Russians. At least he closed the door after him.

Sniffing, Kai took Tyson's seat at the controls and took stock of their direction. Despite ignoring more pressing things, Tyson had at least kept them on course. They were making good time. Maybe it wouldn't take a week.

Sometime later, after Tyson had come back around to the prow of the ship dressed in a rain coat where he proceeded to do an arrangement of silly movements and tail lashings, Ayah pushed through with a covered plate. As Kai knew he'd have to do soon, she wore a thick, waterproof coat backwards over her chest.

"Fried fish?" she asked. "Coffee?"

Stray strands of wet hair had plastered themselves around her neck and face. He accepted the plate and mug from her, frowning at her pink fingers and shivering.

"How's Tyson doing?" she asked.

He put the plate and mug aside on the control desk and tugged her closer. She let out a little eep of surprise as he pulled off the stupid jacket.

"What are you doing?"

In answer, he leaned towards her and carefully snuffed air from his center out onto her. At her quiet moan and dropping shoulders, he turned her around, both to enfold her in his wings better and to hide the flush that had risen to his cheeks.

"And they think I won't be any use in the snow," he said, amused. "Better?"

"So warm." She snuggled back into him, deeper between his legs.

Wondering if he should stand up with her before she noticed anything funny, he focused his attention on the food she had brought in and wondered how he was going to eat it now.

"Ray and Max are still messing around in the kitchen," she said. "It's the warmest room on the ship, and Max is intent on figuring out how to make brownies without eggs."

"Hm." If she was this cold from that short walk, maybe he should call Tyson back in. But surely the dragon had some endurance for the cold, what with flying around so high and the storms and all.

Ayah suddenly squealed, making him jump.

"What? What?" Worst case scenarios were popping in his head—

"This is the first time you've ever initiated a hug!" Before he could stop her she twisted about and all but crushed his windpipe with the force of her snuggle into his throat, squealing again.

"Don't get use to it," he said in knee-jerk reaction, pulling back his wings and pushing at her.

But she clung to him. "No! I'm still cold!"

"I want to eat."

"Can I sit on your lap while you eat?"

"No." As if her standing between his knees hadn't been bad enough. Freaking hormones. No way was he getting involved with any of that physical mess out here.

Ayah pouted, but settled for fetching a blanket from their communal bed and curling up in the other stool/chair next to him.

Out on the prow, Tyson had risen into the air, draconic legs dangling beneath him, but his tail swishing back and forth like the tail of a cat waiting to pounce.

"Did you send him out there to try and keep the storm from getting worse?" she asked.

"More or less." He took his first bite of the flakey fried goodness. Tyson had been right. It was divine.

"How far are we?"

"About four days, if this storm doesn't stall us." Kai glanced at the anemometer reading. The wind had picked up in the last hour. Thankfully, it was still thirty knots from hurricane gale—or would it be typhoon? "Hopefully Tyson can figure out how to stop that."

Just as he was finishing his fourth takiyaki and the swigs of his coffee, Tyson abruptly dropped.

With it came a roar of wind that plucked at the windshield wipers and forced Kai and Ayah to cling onto the dash as the boat reared.

Kai's mug and dish felt to the door with metallic clatters.

"Tyson!" Ayah cried.

Kai jumped down and shot for the door.

"Kai! Wait!"

The door all but gave way once he twisted the knob, and a spray of icy, bullet like rain slammed into his front. The chill knocked the breath from his chest, and his knees went weak. The wind knocked through him with the force of a ram.

But he held his ground, clawing for the doorframe even as the wind pried at his wings.

Then Ayah's hand appeared at his wrist. Within moments she had pried his grip loose and slammed the door close.

"Radio," she gasped. "Ray, Max. The storm will blow you and me off in moments."

Stupid. He should have thought of that. Most of their mass had turned to light boned wings, after all.

He jumped back to the consol and reached for the intercom button.

"Max, Ray, Tyson's down. Prow of the ship."

Within a few seconds, the speaker buzzed back on with Max's voice.

" _Roger._ "

Kai caught a glance of the wind readings. 70 knots. Then 50. Then 72.

"We've reached typhoon levels," he said lowly, sliding down the controls for readings on the ships. Their direction had gone screwed towards the east, and the ship had tilted back further than he thought. The engines rpms had jumped up to compensate.

"Why so suddenly?" Ayah's voice had dropped, and he suspected if she spoke any louder it would squeak.

"Maybe Tyson was doing something without even trying, or figured it out and strained himself." He ducked towards the windshield to try and catch a glimpse of blues scales and dark hair through the moments of clarity between each pass of the wipers. He thought he could see movement.

Then, just as quickly as it came, the winds died down and the rain lessened. The windshield cleared enough for him to make out Tyson once more on the prow, not floating anymore, but definitely on his feet and facing the white capped gray waters before them. Coming up to his right was the gold head of Max, who took a place facing down the ocean at Tyson's side.

It all made him incredibly frustrated with his uselessness. And incredibly proud.

"Is Tyson doing it?" Her question turned into a squeal. "Yes! Tyson's doing it!"

"You can hear them?"

"Just a little under the wind and everything. Gal, the ocean is noisy. I'm not going to miss it one bit." She hopped back to her seat and nearly sat wrong on her tail feathers. "Max intends to help him out with the waves. He can only do so much with the wind that's around us, not further back where it's pushing the waves. Oooo, this is so cool! All we need now to complete it is for Ray to come out and direct lightning away from us."

"Lightning rarely strikes over open ocean," said Kai coolly, though he smiled as well. He had the strangest urge to go down and see if Ray had anymore hot chocolate.

"Think we'll still make good time?"

"Too early to tell. In the meantime, as long as those gusts are possible, you and I aren't going anywhere, and the other will probably stay where they are until the storm passes."

The implications of what he had just said dawned on him seconds later, and heat rushed back to his face. He averted his head from her to hide it, which was probably why he didn't see her until she slithered under his arm and snuggled up against his chest.

"I'm cold," she whined, eyes sparkling.

The crazy, mad dance his organs started doing made it difficult to breathe. He wasn't certain if he was excited or if his intestines were about to get knotted.

Ayah laid a light kiss at the base of his throat, cutting off his words about not getting physical.

Knotted. Definitely knotted.

Using her mouth and fascinating caresses of her feathers that didn't feel much different from kisses, Ayah managed to get him on his back on the bed when the cabin door slammed open.

"Ayah, is everything—"

Ayah only pulled back enough to turn her head, blocking Kai's view with waterfalls of white hair she had released from her braid moments before, but he didn't need to see, as he recognized Ray's voice. Hot fire burned to the very edges of his skin with a full on blush, and he tried to covertly wriggle out from beneath her. She gave him a very displeased pout as he sat up.

Ray looked as if he had been frozen in the doorway. His pupils had expanded till they looked nearly human.


	7. Jealousy and Japanese

**Anyone have any requests from me for Christmas? ^.^**

5

"What?" asked Ayah, as though being caught straddling someone was the most natural thing in the world.

That snapped Ray out of it and his black eyebrows came down. He clenched his fists until they popped.

For a moment, Kai became hyperaware of the fact that Ray had claws that could be on him before he could finish blinking.

Then Ray turned and slammed the door behind him.

Ayah brushed strands of hair from her face, frowning. "He's upset? Did I do something wrong? I mean, did it embarrass him that much?"

He would have laughed if he wasn't embarrassed himself, not to mention just a little shaken. "It's like I said. He loves you."

Her head snapped to him, eyes wide. "You weren't just desperate?"

"Oh, I was desperate, but enough to lie about something like that? No." Kai slid his knees out from beneath her, sighing. This was probably the main reason why he hadn't wanted to get physical. Freaking drama. Though Ray was going to find out eventually, if he hadn't already.

Her mouth popped open in horror. "You mean, I…K-K-Kai, what if I, what if it—"

"It's not going to kill him," he said dryly. "Besides, I'm starting to think that's a myth your dad told you to stop you from sleeping around with humans. In all honesty, it would have destroyed your race before it even had a chance. Entire families would have died off the moment someone died without preparation."

She closed her eyes and sighed. "I guess I've never actually seen one of my kind die from it, so I can't say no. I should still go after him."

He caught her wrist, stopping her. "And do what? Apologize for not falling in love with him?"

Her cheeks pinkened. "Well I…I could…"

Tugging her back onto the mattress, he resisted the urge to roll on top of her just as she had done to him and got to his feet.

"Ray's a big boy," he said. "He'll be fine."

Luckily, Ayah didn't come up and drape herself about him the moment he had sat down, so the rest of his watch went by in surprisingly pleasant conversation with her. She told him about the hidden, small mountain valley among the Himalayas where her family use to live. Despite the mountains around them being covered in ice, the valley itself was warm enough to grow a fruit orchard and other vegetables late into November. Her mother was able to use the reflection of the light on the snow and carefully arranged mats she had woven of her own feathers to hide the valley from outsiders to the point where the only way you would ever find it is if you fell into it.

Despite the solitude, during the winter months, when there was no work to be done, their father and mother would sneak them down into the village below to play and go to school until her older brother's wings grew in. They had hoped that the two or three months contact with humans would give them the knowledge they needed to hide themselves among them, should the day ever come that they should need to.

"And they taught you Japanese in these little towns?" he'd asked skeptically.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course not. That's what the internet is for. I'm not a savage. Being guardian of sound makes me and my father pretty adept at learning languages. He learned it with me."

That had definitely impressed him, and from then on out he switched to Russian to speak with her.

Later, when all of them but Ray had turned in at the control cabin for bed, Tyson was very put out as Max jumped into an English conversation with her.

"Why am I the only one who can't speak another language?" he asked bitterly.

"Don't they teach English in your school?" Kai asked mid stretch. He felt stuffy after a day of sitting around.

Tyson opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by a jaw cracking yawn. His long mane of hair was still plastered to his skull from the rain. Kai frowned.

"Aren't you going to take a shower?"

"I've been showering all day," said Tyson with a roll of his eyes. He plucked at his dry shirt. "Clothes is all I need. Besides that, where's my praise? I kept the wind from knocking us over all day long like the boss dragon I am."

Kai just looked at him. When it became apparent Tyson would get nothing, Tyson sighed and made a show of slinking to bed with his hands dragging to the floor, which made Kai snort despite himself.

"Stop it, Tyson. Fine. Yay you, we're not dead, now get some sleep."

"You're such a Mom, Kai."

"Where's Ray?" Max broke from his conversation to ask.

Kai and Ayah exchanged glances, which Max didn't miss.

"What?"

"Maybe you should go check on him," said Ayah.

Max went to do just that, returning with the message that Ray had decided to sleep in the bunk room, like a normal, non-paranoid human being, and asked what the others had done to him. Kai, of course, would only answer that question over his dead body. Ayah had no such reservations.

"He sort of walked in while Kai and I were kissing." At least she had the sense to look embarrassed.

Tyson's tail abruptly smacked against the lockers with an ear-splitting crash as he flipped back onto his hands and knees.

"What?!" he squeaked. "You were doing what?"

"Kissing," said Max, though he sounded a bit thin himself. At least he managed to gather himself enough to smile at them. "Ooooo, Kaaaaaaii got some actioooooon."

To Kai's dismay, Tyson caught on. "Did you get some tongue? Did he see you straddling each other and grinding and drooling and—"

Kai chucked the first thing he could reach, which happened to be one of his boots. The shoe bounced off Tyson's forehead and into Max's gut.

Ayah's face had gone red.

"Now you know, so shut up and go to sleep," said Kai.

"What the crap, Kai! You could have killed me!"

"Unlikely. Your head's harder than that."

"What?!"

Max wheedled in, as he always did. "Come on, Kai, we're just happy for you. Right, Tyson?"

Tyson stuck out his bottom lip and rubbed the red spot on his forehead hard.

"Whatever. He can get dumped for all I care," he looked to Ayah, who flinched as his eyes fell on her. "What do you see in this jerk?"

She ducked her chin down sheepishly. "Probably the same thing you do."

This gave Tyson pause. But then he just grunted, gave Kai another glare, and took his place on the edge of the mattress facing the door. Since the others had found Kai to be an excellent space heater, he'd been coerced to keep sleeping in the middle of the bed since the first night. As they all got comfortable and the light was turned off, Kai found the space between him and the wall where Ray usually slept gaping and cold. It irritated him that he should care at all, as he already got poor enough sleep with everyone flinging their body parts into his personal space.

"Don't you dare get it on while we're here," said Tyson with his back turned to him.

Kai kicked him out of bed for that, and another round of fighting ensued.

Eventually, they did all get to sleep, and Kai just used Ray's extra space for the spread of his wings. It wasn't like Ray wouldn't be comfortable or losing sleep if he did.

The next few days brought clear skies and passed much the same as the ones before the storm. They took shifts watching the ship's vital signs and did their best to learn as much as possible about keeping it afloat. Tyson worked on his powers, though after he accidentally gusted Ayah, a tarp, a trashcan, and a flurry of debre into Kai, he was ordered to the skies to practice and could be seen slithering about up there. Occasionally, when Ray's cold silence and Max's falsely cheery voice started getting on his nerves, he'd fly up and join him.

"What's up with Max?" Tyson asked him when Kai finally admitted to why he was up in Tyson's skies in the first place. He pretended to lounge on a cloud as he asked that, tail flicking its newly budded horns on the gusts beneath him.

It was much harder for Kai to hover, so he fell into a glide, which Tyson was forced to fall in beside him if he wanted to hear an answer, which Tyson ended up giving himself.

"I guess he did flirt awfully hard with her at first. Though every dude we've met's done that. I guess it's easy to forget just how pretty she is when you're, you know, running for your life."

It just irritated Kai further. He'd been in more than his fair share of drama with his team, but this was just ridiculous—at least to him it was.

"At least he's making a fair effort to be a man about it," said Kai scathingly.

Tyson let out a low whistle and flipped onto his back, just to show off that he could and Kai couldn't. "That's cold. Poor Ray. But, then again, this is you we're talking about. Weird, though, I figured Ray would deal with this better than Max. Remember all those times he blew up about his mama drama or not being good enough to win a tournament and stuff?"

"Maybe he didn't have it as bad."

"Way to go making love sound like a disease."

Sometimes, Kai had to wonder.

The more he watched and thought about it, though, it made sense that Max would be able to bounce back easier. He had, after all, just needed some time before he was fine with Kai again after being denied the chance to try and find his mom in LA.

Either or, the next three days passed in relative peace. He urged Ayah to practice flying with Tyson, who also often took to the skies to avoid grunge work. At least flying there wasn't any chance of her seducing him.

All of that stopped when snow began to fall.


	8. Out to Ice

**Like I'm going to forget to update on Christmas of all days. Ya'll need something to read once the festivities are over, don't you?**

 **MERRY CHRISTMAS!**

6

It had been two days since they had seen the sun when they docked at a place called Port Clarence, as named by a sunbleached sign half covered in snow. The clock told them it had just reached three, but night had already come. The man who stumbled out of the port office to meet Ray and Max was made twice his size by the coat and fur rimmed hood he wore.

"I ain't heard of any U.S. Navy boats heading this way," he said through the wind. Kai heard it through Ayah, who hung out the door of the control deck to hear. "Russia invading?" Then he must have gotten close enough to see them through the snow and stopped. "Good lord, what are you wearing? It's negative ten."

The answer to that was whatever they could find, which turned out to be bright orange rain coats with U.S. NAVY on the backs in big, bold letters. The boat wasn't exactly bursting at the seams with arctic level gear.

Kai shivered and pulled her in, shutting the door behind her. The little electric heater in the wall was working so hard, it buzzed. Constantly.

"Ray can handle it," he pushed through his chattering teeth.

"He's not going to hurt the poor man, is he?"

Kai gave her a drool look, to which she pouted.

"These are dire enough circumstances," she said.

"Whatever. Get close, that heaters crap." He pulled her towards their community bed in the corner.

She didn't need any convincing.

Joining them in the room for freaks who couldn't hide under a rain coat was Tyson, who had huddled up next to the heater, tail wrapped about him and clawed dragon feet tucked beneath his thighs.

"S-s-screw it, l-l-let Tala freeze," said Tyson. "Hey, K-K-Kai, b-be a f..friend and let me into that…that feather hud-d-ddle, yeah?"

Kai sighed. He'd been telling Tyson all morning to move around more to keep warm, but it wasn't like Tyson could do much hiding out in the control cabin while Ray and Max were at work getting them money and coats.

"Fine."

Tyson gave him a broad smile and zipped over faster than he had moved all day. Creepy crawlies shot up his arms and back as he felt Tyson wriggle his way into the cocoon he had made out of his wings for Ayah. It increased as Tyson made a guttural groan of pleasure.

"So warm," he moaned.

Ayah glanced at Kai, smile amused, and laid her head on his shoulder. Tyson tried to get close enough to lay his head on Kai's shoulder too, but that went too far, so he settled with Kai's leg. Within minutes he was asleep, snores and all.

"I think this is wonderful," sighed Ayah, snuggling her knees around Tyson.

Kai just grunted, busy with holding back the urge to throw them both off him. He should be use to this by now, he told himself. How many nights had they all slept on the same mass of mattresses? Even so, he'd been able to keep some distance between them.

Though he had to admit, it didn't take long for his own shivering to calm as their collective body heat warmed him as well.

When time passed and even Ayah's breathing grew shallow and even, he supposed she had fallen asleep too and wondered if there was any way he could grab a blanket to replace himself. But when he tried to shift, Ayah spoke up.

"Is there anything I can do to convince you to let me come with you? I could find a way to cover my wings. And I could hear what people are saying and where we are in the snow. Ray's fast and all, but what if you get lost?"

"Then I'll fly up and find where we are."

"What if the snowstorm doesn't clear up?"

"All the more reason to go. Tala feels safer in snow storms. He'll let his guard down and be less prone to attack whoever approaches."

She fell quiet, though shifted uneasily. Outside the wind howled and picked at the ship's windshield wipers.

"I can hear the ship," she murmured. "I hate these metal things. They're so noisy. Like a giant sound trap."

"Is silence uncomfortable?" he asked.

"Yes. I can count on one hand how many times I've heard true silence, but this much noise is almost just as bad. All the creaking, groaning, the whale song, the hum of the passing water, the slap of waves, the wind, every single footstep, every word…" she sighed and dipped her fair face up to the curve of his neck.

"Overheard something?"

"Sort of…"

He figured if she wanted to talk about it, she would, and didn't press her.

"What about these times you heard true silence?"

When her hand curled against his chest, he wondered if he had asked a question he shouldn't have. But then she pushed the curled hand over his shoulder and spread her fingers into the hair on the nape of his neck.

"The…strange glass box they'd put me in sometimes. They'd fill it with a kind of fluid that stopped my ears from working, even from the inside. It was almost…clay like."

"Why?" They still, after all, didn't know why the hunters were after her family. Surely they weren't afraid of them destroying the world like their ancestors were, and if they wanted their power, how would they even do that?

"Because…" she hesitated. "I don't know. That was the scariest part. It was so quiet. I couldn't even hear my heartbeat, which I've been able to hear since…" she pressed her forehead so hard against his shoulder it hurt. "I don't even know if the people who caught me were even the same ones who killed my family. They just pulled me underground and stuck me in that box until they let me out. Then it was…box after box, cages, really.

"I guess that's another reason why I took up the offer to sing with that beyblader so quickly. It meant I could get outside, that I could see the sky again and hear everything breathing. Yeah, I had that collar I couldn't get off and they threatened me a good deal, but it was freedom to me. It didn't even cross my mind that it might hurt someone."

Kai remembered their first meeting well. Back then, she had just been a pair of blue eyes on the top of a building, wingless, shady, and emitting weird sounds as Tyson's beyblade crashed into her associate's.

"Are you certain your family wasn't just captured as well?" he asked.

When she didn't answer right away, he thought he understood and gave her a light, encouraging squeeze, wishing he could just throw off Tyson without any guilt so he could hold her. He could barely remember what it was like to have a loving family, but he had the boys at the Abbey, and then Tyson and the others. It wasn't hard to imagine what it would be like to lose one.

After a while, when Kai started to hope that even he could catch a bit of sleep even with Tyson touching him, Ayah said, in almost a whisper, "There's a different kind of silence when someone dies. Just because I hear everything doesn't mean I do all the time, otherwise I'd go crazy. But when they died all my attention was focused on them, so I heard the rhythm and song of their blood and tissues buzz in panic, then go quiet, quiet, and the lack of sound was so vast. Larger and emptier than the whole valley when the wind died down and cold had sent all the living things underground."

"Sounds like a song," he murmured. "Like lyrics or a poem, I mean."

"A song," she muttered, twisting his hair about her fingers.

She really did fall asleep not soon after that and Kai found himself alone as the gas lamp in their cabin eventually died down and his eyes adjusted enough to see the white snow falling outside. In the quiet he could hear the waves crashing against the side of the boat, like hushing.

Around midnight, Kai was jolted awake by the cabin door crashing against the wall. Alarm sparked fire to his fingers, he moved to get his feet under him—

"Eeek! Sorry! My fault!"

Max's voice calmed him instantly, allowing a light irritation to settle in at his sleep being interrupted. It hadn't been easy to come by.

"Well?" he asked, as Ray closed the door behind him and Max turned on the lights. He raised a wing over Ayah to protect her from the light, but tugged his other wing back in, leaving Tyson to tumbled back out into the cold, harsh world. The dragon hissed, wriggled under a mass of nearby blankets, and kept on snoring.

"We got the goods," said Ray, bringing around a bulging, huge army grade canvas bag from his back.

"Muffin?" came the muffled, sleepy voice from beneath the blankets.

"Go back to sleep, Tyson," said Max, followed by a yip as his chattering teeth bit his tongue.

"So cold," said Ray, who, despite his vendetta against Kai at the moment, was eyeing his large, most likely warm wings longingly.

Max had no such inhibitions and quickly made his way over to Kai, whining, "Please let me in, Kai. I can't feel my feet anymore, or even my hands. I think I got frost bite."

Kai sighed and lifted up the wing now free of Tyson and Max snuggled in with a quiet cheer.

He and Ray stared each other down, both knowing Ray didn't have it in him to go back outside into the cold in order to get to the cabin he had been sleeping in.

Finally, his shoulders slumped, and a jumping, weak smile spread across his face.

"I never thought I'd see the day where Kai Hiwatari wanted me to cuddle with him," said Ray.

Kai flushed and glared. "I said no such thing. I'm sick at the very idea."

"Sure." Despite this, Ray peeled off his coat and crawled onto the mattresses. He hesitated only for a moment before putting his back to Kai's, a blanket thrown over his front. "I'm sorry. For…how I've been acting."

Kai gave a grunt to show he heard, and more or less accepted the apology, as Ray was allowed to keep his back where it was.

Despite all of them, including Tyson when he wriggled over caterpillar like not soon after that, cuddled up around him, Kai found sleep remarkably easy. When he woke up they were still there, but the unpleasantness of physical contact wasn't. Just a sort of content peace in seeing and knowing where they were, and that they were all safe.

The weather was only a mite more compromising. Though the howling winds had backed off, snow still fell, thin and powdery like dandruff, which only testified to the chill of the air outside. Warmer air allowed snowflakes to stick together and be the fluffy things people cherished over the holidays. Kai remembered the first real snow he'd seen in Japan being that way, and wondering if this is what people meant when they spoke of snow so romantically.

They geared up in the puffy, slippery coats and snow pants, though Ray gave Kai an extra long, giant's trenchcoat of leather. The weight of it spoke of a tried and tested coat, worth hundreds of dollars, and probably priceless to the owner.

"Where did you get this?" he asked.

"Not off someone's back," said Ray, though his answering smile wasn't proud. "It's the only thing I could find that would cover you and your wings."

And so it did. He had to stuff his tailfeathers down his snowpants, but he felt normal for the first time in a long time. He wouldn't have to wear his coat backwards anymore.

Then the snowboots. Woven, wing like snow shoes. The extra layers of shirts. Socks. Heat packets that warm when you tore them open and they made contact with oxygen. Ski goggles. Ski masks.

"We're going to want chapstick or Vaseline," Kai said. "Freezer burn on your mouth is probably the most irritatingly painful thing you can experience."

"There's some in the first aid kit," said Ayah, who had finished dressing into her snow pants before the others and was watching with her white wings wrapped about her for a coat.

The rest of the survival gear on Kai's list he found on the ship readily enough, though Max and Ray had brought back enough money in case they didn't. Just to make sure of it, Ray had also brought back high calorie bars, a GPS, and a compass.

"I'd like to not put all my chance of survival on one person," said Ray.

Kai wasn't offended. He of all people didn't need to be reminded of how dangerous the cold and ice really could be. The Abbey had played on it.

They ate a very warm breakfast thanks to Max, who somehow had managed to make a rather normal tasting American breakfast, sausages, pancakes, bacon and all. Ray hadn't been the only one with sticky fingers, and Tyson sang Max praises all the way up to the point of departure.

"How long should we wait until going in for you?" Tyson asked Kai in all seriousness.

"Three days," said Kai.

All of them flinched.

"No way!" cried Max. "If something happens, you'll be dead by then."

"We'll be fine," said Kai for the umpteenth time that day.

"Um, I'm having a few inhibitions," said Ray uncomfortably.

"After three days you're to sail off," continued Kai. "You stick around here too long and the yanks will be on you, and I seriously doubt you'll be able to find us. Ray, what did you do with the dock man?"

Ray blushed and ducked his head. "I knocked him out and, um, laid him out on a couch in the first house I could get into. He should have a nasty headache, but he should be fine."

"If he thinks it's a dream, seeing the ship when he comes back to work will verify that it isn't." He looked to Tyson and Ayah. "Best you two see to him as quickly as you can. You remember his voice, Ayah?"

"Yes."

"Max, watch the ship."

"Ay ay, captain."

With one last farewell, and a very tight hug for both of them from Ayah, Kai and Ray walked down the gangplank and onto frozen, Alaskan soil.


	9. A Lone Wolf

**Happy New Years!**

7

There was another reason Kai had chosen Ray to come with him instead of one of the others. His strength and speed aside, Ray was also not a whiner. He clenched his teeth and shoved on through the snow, even as the wind picked up and the short day grew dark once more. Kai didn't bother with a flashlight, choosing to go by the compass and steady green glow of the GPS. It worked out for the best, as light in a snow storm only blinded you more.

Before it had grown dark, he tied a lead between him and Ray so they wouldn't get separated. A few hours into the darkness, the lead went taut, stopping him in his tracks.

"Ray?" he shouted over the wind.

"I'm okay," he heard. "Feet gone numb. Tripped. I need to tear open some more heat packets."

But Ray's fingers were too numb to pick them out of his pocket, let alone tear them.

Kai gathered a bit of the fire still burning within him and puffed out heat a foot from Ray's hands. Ray let out a cry, "Hot!" but didn't falter, even lifting his hands closer.

"Weird how you can feel your hands sweating when you thaw them out," he said conversationally as he easily pulled out the packets and tore them open. "You haven't had one all day. You need one?"

"As long as I don't get too hot, I'm okay," he said.

"How does that make sense?"

"It's the contrast of temperatures that hurts," which wasn't entirely true. Kai hadn't been unaffected by the cold, but if he concentrated he could deal with it better, by keeping his middle warm and sending out bits of heat to his limbs. It left him starving, however, and he found himself eating an extra calorie bar not long after they had stopped for a snack.

"Maybe we should make shelter," said Ray. "You said he'd only be a day out, right?"

"That's under good conditions." He snapped the frozen chunk of chocolate something and chewed. Despite the Vaseline, he could feel his lips cracking.

"Then I stand by my suggestion." Ray quickly stuffed the freshly open packets in his boots. "My toes are getting crowded by dead packets anyways. I'd have thought my tail had frozen off if I didn't still feel it in my pantleg."

Kai glanced down at the GPS. They weren't that far. But night was never the time to travel, and already only an hour after sunset temperatures had dropped to sub-zero.

"Alright," said Kai.

As though reading his mind, Ray tried to step back, but the rope stopped him. Kai just turned towards the tallest snow bank and breathed deep.

Despite being fed off for an entire day, his fire flared to life, burning away at the calorie bar he had just swallowed. The stream of fire ate into the hillside until it finally went out with his breath. Kai shuffled in his many inside leather pockets for a flashlight and clicked it on to see the depth of the cave. What he saw elicited a grunt of pleased surprise.

"Dang," said Ray.

Kai tugged the lead. "Come on. You wanted shelter, didn't you?"

Inside, the snowcave was about the size of a walk-in closet with a low ceiling, which was perfect for conserving heat. The melted snow had quickly frozen to smooth ice, and once inside Ray quickly got to work covering up the entrance with snow. Kai joined him, wondering if there was a way he could just melt the ceiling down, but thought better of it.

When the only thing they could see was the light green glow of the GPS that Kai had left in the middle of the room, they both crawled in deeper, slipped off their wide wicker snow shoes, curled onto their sides, and promptly passed out.

He woke up to the sound of Ray chortling. Not knowing why he ached all over so badly, and still exhausted, Kai groaned in irritation.

"What's so funny?"

"Can you feel how warm this snowcave is? Dang, this is amazing! This isn't half bad."

"What time is it?"

"About mid-morning. You've been asleep a while. Here." Ray tossed him one of the calorie bars. "I've noticed keeping warm takes it out of you. We should hurry."

Kai bit into it, longing for something hot and meaty.

Ray did a bit more goofing off when their pee instantly froze, but since he wasn't Tyson or Max, he didn't dawdle over it for hours or keep giggling about it into the day. The snow storm had stopped, leaving the sky thinly overcast with a low leveled sun in their faces. Because of this, Kai encouraged Ray to keep his mask and goggles on, even when the tiger began to sweat beneath it. Hopefully the UV protection of the goggles would stop them from going blind.

With the veil of snow gone, the thinning forest of pine came into view. Evergreen underbrush crowded the places where pine had failed to crowd, but they were mostly covered in snow, which also had reached on level with the lowest pine branches.

"We should be close," said Kai. "Look for any weird bumps in the snow like an igloo, or maybe a small cabin."

"Man, Tala really is hard core, isn't he?"

"Only when it comes to living off bugs." Which was ironic, really, as he had been chosen in the end to be experimented on with cybernetics.

Kai had only taken a few steps when a flash of silver and a long strip of bark flew across his path. He froze, staring at the plain of naked, yellow pine.

"Identify yourselves."

Though the voice came from his right, he saw no one there. Even so, he smiled and lifted his mask. "A little far from Igarov's lakeside, don't you think?"

There was a few moments before a quiet, hopeful "Kai?" came from a small hillock. "Who's that with you?"

"Ray, from my team." Kai took off his hood and goggles to shake out his hair, further reassuring Tala of his identity. "We've come to get you."

"And take me where?" And from seemingly nowhere, Tala appeared, bright red hair left bare to the cold sun and brilliant as blood against the white snow. He lifted his goggles too, though his expression was guarded.

Kai didn't need to think about it. All he had to do traveling here was thinking. "We're going to figure that out. All I know is it's not safe for us anymore, and not just because we're Abby boys." He undid the first buttons.

Tala's eyes narrowed, either out of skepticism or because a breeze had picked up and the sun had come out brighter than ever.

"I don't get what you mean."

And in a dramatic sweep, Kai unzipped his coat and slipped it off from his wings. Slowly, cringing from the cold, he raised them in to the crisp air, their gold and red plumage just as brilliant as Tala's hair.

Tala scrambled back, falling into the snow with a loud Russian curse.

"This is what I was hiding from you back in the hospital," said Kai breathlessly, then he went on to explain the change that had come over them and what he knew of the bitbeasts true identity as their ancestors. Ray helped a lot, being a bit more eloquent with words than Kai ever was.

By the time they had stopped talking, the sun had started its short decent to the horizon.

"So if I come with you," said Tala slowly, his expression covered by his hair. "I can become some…anthropomorphic freak and we'll figure out a way to travel in space and make our own planet?"

"Or get a hold of wherever our kind went," said Ray with a forced casualness.

"Dodging mad scientist who want to kill or experiment on us—"

"They aren't all in for the educational hit. There are the old fashion groups too," said Kai.

Tala rolled his head back in his direction so he could see his lazy, raised eyebrow. But the expression was only there for a moment before he blew a raspberry and cracked into rib breaking laughter.

Kai and Ray exchanged glances as Kai worked to get into his trench coat again. His arms and wings felt so cold, it felt like an old fashion burn.

"Okay, I know my dreams have been wacky of late," said Tala. "But this takes the cake. But I love it when I realize it's a dream, because if I concentrate really hard, a line of beautiful naked babes will appear, begging me to ravish them in the snow." He sighed and got up, brushing the snow off his legs. "You want one, Kai? Might as well order you guys up some too."

"Concentrate all you like," said Kai, unamused. "This isn't a dream. If you want, I can burn off your hair to prove it to you."

Kai expected Tala's next words to be 'even if it was real, what would make you think I'd want to change into a freak and come along with you?' At least, that would have been what Kai would have said if he were in Tala's shoes.

But Tala had learned far quicker and easier than Kai that he didn't want to be alone.

"What the hell," he stuffed his gloved hands in his pockets. "It's not like I have life left for me here anyways. You're the only teammate I have left, and my family's all dead." He gave Kai a hard smile, the only kinds he could give.

Kai returned it.

"We can stay at my place for the night," said Tala, jerking a thumb back through the trees. "Got a snowmobile we can squish together on so we can make it back by the three day mark tomorrow, because, no offense, I don't think that genki of yours is smart enough to not go looking for you."

"Then best we make it back so Tyson doesn't do the stupid," said Ray, happy now that he knew he didn't have to trudge through snow anymore. "You got any meat?"

"Hell yeah. Not like anything else grows out here. Ever had caribou?"

"No. Sounds amazing."

Tala let out another loud laugh for the snow and pine to swallow up.

"Oh, Hiwatari. It's good to see you again. Not dead, that is."

"Good to be not dead," he said.


	10. A Trick of the Light

8

Despite having a good night's rest and who knew how many of those sickly chocolate calorie bars, Kai not only found himself ravenous on entering Tala's cabin, but exhausted as well, despite being rather untouched by the cold. Before he could think otherwise, he sat down on the mess of furs before the fire and woke up freezing to the point of pain.

Hissing profanities, he sat up and glared at the depressing flames in the fireplace.

"Don't you have any decent firewood?" asked Kai as he threw in a log from the pile besides it. "Or better yet, some coal?"

"Since when have you complained about the cold?" said Tala, who came around with a poker to stab at the roast hanging over the fire. "Besides, low flames are best for cooking."

Kai rolled his eyes and started tearing off his boots.

"That'll just make you colder—" Tala cut off with a spluttering choke as Kai thrust his feet into the coals.

Kai let out an explosive sigh as the heat spidered up his chins.

Tala just stared.

"I know," said Ray, coming around to Kai's other side. "I had to dump him into a steel drum of fire. Freaking weird, isn't it?"

"And he's not going to come back with his flesh peeling off, right?"

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here," said Kai flatly, even as he found the reason he had fallen so cold. The fire he had stoked so carefully from his gut to the rest of him had died down as he slept. As his eyes drooped, he could only guess that it was because of exhaustion. He could keep the cold at bay, but it took it out of him. Being a being of fire just gained another negative.

As though reading his thoughts, Ray said, "You're not looking so good."

"Keep your opinions to yourself." Kai pulled off his gloves and thrust his hands into the fire as well. As he watched the little yellow flames and red coals spark colors across his honey skin, he drowsily thought of how he could squeeze himself into the fireplace after dinner…and if it would be worth it.

"So, how'd you guys get here?" Tala asked. "Ray got me up to when he was catnapped in LA and taken to that, gasp, secret army base. Then you woke up and everything's got to be about the guy whose wings are taking up most of my house."

In Kai's defense, Tala's one-room (literally one little box of wood), was quite tiny. Tiny was best for heating purposes up so far near the arctic circle.

Kai made a grunting noise to express that he was too tired for storytelling. The only reason he was still conscience was to keep his extremities in the fire and to eat the meat as soon as it was done.

So Ray, polite as ever, continued with what had happened in the lab and where they had split off.

"…and then, somehow, Kai had gotten into the volcano and came shooting out the top so hot, he was like a small sun or flying meteorite. It was brilliant—uh, I mean. Literally. He just burned through everything."

Tala didn't make any noises to Ray's narrative. But when Ray came around to how they had stolen a U.S. Navy ship, albeit the smallest one there, he let out a low whistle.

"That's hard core," he said to Kai. "But please tell me you didn't sail that thing here."

Kai glanced at him, frowning. Tala met his eye, blinked, groaned, and slapped Kai over the head.

"You idiot," he growled. "Every U.S. Navy ship has a GPS tracking device."

Every muscle in Kai's body went rigid. Tala went on about how it would be stupid for any nation's navy to not have tracking on their boats, but Kai hardly heard him. Beside him, Ray had also stiffened and rose.

"We have to get back," Ray's voice had gotten high.

Tala frowned. "Sunset's almost past. I don't know if you've ever lived in the artic zone, but you don't travel at night. Especially if you're a soft noob—"

"I made it here, didn't I? Besides, we'll be on your snowmobile. But we have to go, now."

Kai brought his feet out of the fire and proceeded to stuff the hot, ashy bits into his boots.

"Hold on, I haven't even told you everything yet," said Tala.

"That can wait," said Kai. "Where's the keys?"

Tala hit Kai upside the head, earning him a vicious snarl, which Tala met head on with icy blue eyes. Ray merely flinched.

"You're not going to be helping anyone if you don't think first. Have some faith in your teammates. Also, I need to tell you about what I found up here."

"Then don't let me stop you," Kai snapped, tying the last lace with a vicious knot.

"There's another one up here."

Ray, who had been mid-zip of the upper part of his coat, blinked at him. "What?"

"Another one like you out here," he said, nodding to Kai. "Guy with wings, except the feathers were made of some crystalline stuff. Was like looking at freaking rainbow apocalypse."

That did make Kai stop. Even Ray stilled, having heard the stories of Ayah's mother.

"Why didn't you mention this before?" Kai asked. "Why now? It won't change that we need to get back to hide the others."

"Because I think he might already be dead," said Tala grimly. "He hardly wore anything, well, anything for out here, and he was skinny as a rake. And I thought I'd been dreaming. What kind of weirdo comes out here wearing rainbow wings? But, if there's a chance he's not dead-"

"He'll be dead soon," finished Kai with a nod. "Did he see you?"

Tala snorted. "Like hell. But I wouldn't put it past him to be aware of the crap that's following you lot around, so he's probably as good at hiding as I am. Might not be a bad idea to make it obvious who you are."

Kai nodded again and stood, just for a dizzy spell to take him. He caught himself on the mantle just as Ray reached out to catch him.

"I'm fine," he waved Ray's hands away impatiently. "Where did you see him?"

"About a degree north and point five west—oy, where do you think you're going?"

"Since when were you in the business for stupid questions?" he threw on his trench coat backwards and twisted his back to Ray, who reached for the straps without needing to be asked.

"Maybe you should eat—" Ray started.

"No, I need the last of the daylight. He has to see me." Kai slipped off his belt and used it to hold down the coat just beneath his wings. "And if he's what Tala says, he's most likely related to Ayah."

"Then I'll come with you."

"No. You stay here and get ready to leave. I shouldn't be gone too long, and I'd like to think a big red bird in the sky is going to stand out."

Tala, who had been poking his roast again, sighed, but Kai ignored him. Warmth had returned to his blood as his heart had picked up speed. Loathing, sharp and sour, stuck to the back of his throat. How could he have forgotten the tracking of all things? They should have abandoned the boat, taken the rest of the journey by train hitchhiking, or on foot.

As a last minute thought, he loosened his pants and tugged out his tail.

"Not that it matters or anything," said Tala. "But if the army isn't crawling all over your boat when we get back, I can disable the tracking device."

"We'll worry about it then. How's it looking Ray?"

"Everything's looking good back here. Hurry, alright?"

Kai nodded, then stepped out of the door and into the blue amber of a dying day. Cold reached through his feathers and bit at the flesh exposed by his tail. Gritting his teeth against the bite, he pounded himself up, spraying dry snow in a spinning flurry about him, and climbed into the air.

He didn't go too far, leveling out only a few meters above the sparse treetops. He tugged out the GPS from his coat pocket and picked his course. Eyeing the expanse before him, he mentally marked how far he would go before looping around and slipping the GPS back into his coat.

If he were right and this was a member of Ayah's family that had somehow escaped…

 _I think he might be already dead…_

His chest constricted. What would Ayah do when she heard Tala had seen someone who looked like her family member up here? Tala had said 'guy' but it was often difficult to see with any kind of weather gear, and even though he said he wore little for 'out here,' what was little for out here was still a good amount for elsewhere.

Then another thought occurred to him that made his insides squeeze all the harder: if they had him, how would they get back in time with only one snowmobile? Someone would have to come up from behind on foot.

Energy sucked out from his wings like a leech, and the bitter cold was beginning to reach down into his lungs. He coughed, tottered in the sky, and carried on with a hand over his mouth. Every part of him had begun to shiver violently, and no amount of stoking of the fire within him would keep the warmth in his cramping wings.

 _I think he might be already dead…_

What was he doing? He should be heading to Ayah and the others right now. He should be flying as fast as he could back to the ocean. Why was he out here looking for someone who might already be dead?

Just as he turned to head back, the golden rim of the sun peeking over like a small flim on the distant hills, a flash of light distracted him. He looked towards the source, but saw nothing. Fluttering to a stop, he waited, churning the air, growing colder by the second.

And then he saw him, staring up at him from a clearing Kai had already looked over, surrounded with glittering, mirrorlike surfaces like a mirage.

Breathless, he dropped fast, sinking knee deep into the snow. But his eyes were to the man looking back at him with clear, glass-like eyes.

Tala hadn't been kidding when he had said the guy was skinny. His face was gaunt, shadowed, and the light white cloth he'd wrapped about himself like a kid trying to play mummy with a bedsheet did nothing to hide his skinny limbs, or the fact that he looked like he hadn't eaten a good meal in weeks, maybe even months. His lips were cracked, but pink, not blue, despite his lack of winter gear. He was pale, pale as the snow, but his hair was more of a yellow white.

And his wings. He had folded them in, but they dragged iridescent mirrors behind them, and small rainbows danced on the trees and snow. Crystalline feathers, reflecting what was left of the thin, gold sunlight.

"Hey," said Kai, clearing his throat. "I think I know your sister."

The man didn't say anything. He just blinked slowly. Kai couldn't understand how he could look so intense and vapid at the same time. He wondered if the man even cared that Kai was there.

"Your sister," said Kai clearly, trying it in both Russian and English. "She has white wings." He pointed at his wings. "Her name is Ayah."

Something flickered across the other man's face, and a bit of the glassy look to his eyes cleared. "Ayah?" His voice rasped from what could have been disuse.

Kai nodded. "Ayah. She sings. Has good hearing," he mimicked hearing something.

All vapidness left him and his eyes widened. He spoke something else, something urgent, but Kai couldn't even begin to guess what language he was speaking. He inwardly groaned.

"Guess the talent for language doesn't go to everyone in the family." Eager to get back before either of them froze to death, he gestured to the man to follow and kicked back up into the air.

Iridescent wings, with feathers like dragonfly wings, spread out, dwarfing the wasted body they were attached to. For a moment, Kai feared the guy wouldn't be able to even get into the air, but with a smooth ease that spoke of years of experienced, he lifted into the air and leveled with Kai, wings flashing many colors.

Kai led his…remarkably easily found companion back to Tala's hut, a new kind of tension rising in his gut. If this guy really did know Ayah, what would he do if Kai lead him back to the ocean just to find his sister gone with the army? He looked as though a good breeze would do him over.

Besides that, how was he still alive? He half wondered if he was leading a ghost back home.

As he landed in front of the cabin, he could sense the hesitance of his companion. Trails of white cloth fluttered down with his glassy tail feathers. Kai gestured him in, having to be more insistent when the man caught sight of the others inside. In fact, his legs went stiff as a board, and Kai had to nearly force him through the door.

Tala and Ray did quite a bit of staring.

"That was…quick," said Tala, almost uncertainly.

"Must be fate?" said Ray.

"How close is that meat to done?" Kai asked, patience thin and fighting the temptation to just throw himself headfirst into the fire.

"Uh, probably now, if you're okay with medium rare." Tala tugged out the spit. "Does, uh…he want some?"

"What do you think?" Kai asked dryly.

Even so, he was impressed with how well Tala was taking all this. Two winged freaks in his cabin and a tiger boy and he had yet to question his sanity. He just speared his meat, sliced it into four hunks, and tossed it out to each of them. Kai was the only one who didn't instantly hiss in pain from the contact of fresh off the fire flesh. Kai was also the only one who dug into it right away, revealing in the meat.

The new man gave him a guarded, wary look and shifted.

"Ayah," he said again, along with those other strange words.

"What was that?" asked Ray.

"Tala, interpret," said Kai through a mouthful of food.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"You know more languages than me."

"Yeah, Greek and French, that hardly counts as the whole book. Whatever he's speaking, I don't have a clue."

Great. So they'd have to wait till they got to Ayah. The thought of her made him chew faster.

"I'll fly ahead," he said in between bites. "Tala and Ray, you follow behind. We're leaving once we're done."

"What about the, uh, fallen angel?" Tala asked. "Guy looks dead on his feet."

At least said guy was biting into his own serving with a healthy appetite.

"Well, since none of us can speak his language," Kai swallowed. "He'll get to do whatever he darn pleases. I'm still flying ahead. If he drops out of the sky or something, do me a favor and sling him over the back or something."

Tala eyed the white visitor, who sensed his gaze and looked back with that same, guarded, wary expression. "At least he won't weigh too much. It's a snowmobile, though, not a personnel carrier."

"Was he really that close?" asked Ray. "This is so…weird."

"Too lucky," said Tala with a heavy, suspicious frown. "These people are suppose to be borderline extinct, and one just happens to bunk up around where I choose to hide out? This isn't exactly bird-person paradise."

"Less talking. More eating."


	11. Flight Ice

**Sorry for the late update! I moved last weekend and my new place doesn't have internet, and I don't know when it will since internet cost money and so does staying alive. Since being dead and using the internet isn't an option, here I am outside my local Church leeching off their wi-fi and freezing in the cold. Feel loved. I also don't have a car to get me somewhere warm with free wi-fi either. Yay!**

 **As an apology, this will be the first of two updates I'm putting up today. Hope you enjoy!**

9

Perhaps eating the meat beforehand had been a bad idea.

Not only did he end up cramping and nauseous as his system tried to digest and keep him warm and airborne at the same time, but his possible future brother-in-law ended up throwing it all up, which was to be expected, Kai figured. With a figure that emaciated, meat was always a bad idea.

It just made him hate himself all the more. He had filled up on his allowable mistakes five years earlier.

Thus, his brain was too full of panic and frost to notice right away when whatever his name fell out of the sky (he was sure Ayah told him his name before, but he never thought he'd actually have to remember). Swearing up and down the scale of the three languages he knew, Kai double backed, found the passed out, mostly dead guy two feet in the snow, clamped his arms about his chest, wings and all, and kicked back into the air. Full night had fallen long before, but he could see the lights of the small village, Teller, through the crisp night air.

Thank god it wasn't snowing.

He did take the time to be amazed at how quickly a day and a half worth of walking went by flying. Even so, by the time he touched down in the darkness between the port and teller, he was chilled to the bone, aching, and his unwilling passenger was starting to squirm weakly.

"Ayah," he wheezed, having given up on whatever language he spoke in turn for her name.

"Yeah yeah, shut up and move. We're almost there." He was too busy looking out for lights or signs of other ships on the water to feel too bad for the guy. There had to have been some choice on his part to come to a god forsaken frozen tundra. Idiot could fly, couldn't he?

The scrawny light denizen wavered as Kai put him on his feet, then fell to one knee. With a closed mouth scream of frustration, Kai took off a glove and felt for whatever bit of the guy he could reach.

Frozen. Even as he tried to feel out some kind of heat, the guy's legs gave out and he toppled.

Kai wanted to hurt himself. Light. There wasn't as much light anymore. The guy was probably using the light to stay warm, and hearing about his sister being alive—as he looked too young to be anything else—had made him do the stupid and fly after dark.

Jee, and he thought being fire man was inconvenient.

Despite his own chill, Kai took off his coat and stuffed the limp rag doll of a man in it, wings and all. Where it had been snug on Kai, it all but swallowed the other man. It made Kai's throat hurt.

"Come on. You haven't died yet, against all odds." He grabbed his arms and slung him over his back. As he had been in his arms, the other man weighed nothing.

With cold burning through the long sleeved t-shirt and searing his skin, Kai gritted his teeth and continued on, forcing his weakening fire to keep trying to spread heat to his numb limbs.

He hadn't gotten very far when the sound of footsteps drifted through the darkness. He froze, knowing he should get off the road and hide, but unwilling to toss himself into the snow. Just as he made the first few stumbling steps towards the first snowdrift, he heard a familiar shout, even if it was still too hard to hear the words.

Stupid Tyson always talked too loud.

Trembling, hoping, so cold…so cold…he pushed on.

In what felt like days, the darkness lifted enough to reveal, not just Tyson, but Max and Ayah as well, dressed like the awkward freaks they were in all their snow gear, faces flushed from cold, and figures outlined by clear starlight. On seeing him, they all cried out and ran to him, arms outstretched.

"Oh my gawd, that's not Ray," said Tyson, on reaching him with his arms outstretched for a hug and having to pause for the other body on Kai's back.

"Where's Ray?" asked Max. "And Tala?"

"They're coming," managed Kai, but his eyes were for Ayah, who already had tears in her eyes and hands fluttering for a place to land. "I think he might be your brother."

She froze, but only for a second before she was at his back, tearing off the coat. The only reason Kai stayed standing was that his knees had frozen in place. He thought perhaps the world blurred or his vision dimmed, but it was already so dark he couldn't tell. Nights were supposed to be brighter than this, especially up here where no light pollution scared off the stars.

The next thing he knew he was being slapped awake by a frantic Tyson.

"Don't fall asleep!"

That wasn't really falling asleep. Usually you had a choice in the matter when it came to sleep. That was just straight passing out. Kai tried to tell him this, but he felt like lava that had cooled; unmovable and hard.

And Tyson's face was getting blurry again.

"We need to get them inside!" cried Max.

"But we can't go back to the ship, they're coming!"

"Maybe we have to. They'll find us whether we're in town or on the ship. There's just too much open wilderness."

"He said Tala and Ray were right behind them. Tala's suppose to be some genius about living in the wild, maybe—"

"In a few minutes no kind of genius is going to save this guy, and following right after is Kai." A pregnant pause, followed by a broken, "we don't have a choice."

"We'll just have to defend ourselves," said Ayah, who sounded more confident than the others.

"Guess so, huh? Here, Max, take the brother. I'll take Kai."

Another slap. Kai could see again. Tyson was dragging him up.

"I said stay awake, you arrogant jerk!"

No need for the insults, he thought dimly, even as he tried to do as Tyson asked. But it was like moving a mountain, or rather a body made of stone. He could vividly remember when he had last been so cold. The sea pirate hunters or whatever the hell they had been and dunked him in a tank of water for what had to have been forever until he was so cold he had seen the light, talked with the bitbeast and everything.

 _Kai, you have a future to tend to._

There was light again. Too much. Too bright.

 _He should have thought of the light. What else would have been keeping that guy alive?_

"Fire. He just needs fire. Where's the freaking steel drum?"

"Ayah, maybe I should do that…"

"Yeah if Kai wakes up to that…"

 _You idiot_ , he growled. _Every U.S. Navy ship has a GPS tracking device._

Of course. What kind of Navy wouldn't? Everything was tracked nowadays. He had to get back to the others, had to warn them, had to find them safety…and Ayah. Ayah needed her brother. That's what he had to be. She had been so sad.

"Frick, we can't take him outside."

"He'll be in fire."

"He'll be in broad view!"

"Hey, you hear that?"

Even the voices were getting dim. The cold had left, and while he wasn't warm, he wasn't entirely concerned with temperature anymore. Just floating, drifting, thoughtless and content.

Hot! Hot! It hurt! It burned!

Despite the pain, he had to wriggle through unconsciousness to come awake. By then he was already screaming, but, then he realized it wasn't him, but Max. He clenched his teeth hard and his face screwed up to hold it in. But he choked on the scream and fell to his knees.

Dizzy, confused, in pain, Kai tried to get to Max, but his hands hit into metal. Fire swallowed him, fire was eating him, there were feathers engulfing him.

"I'm okay, it's alright." But there were tears in Max's eyes, and he said it through gritted teeth.

And the arm he held had the sleeve of his coat melted away, pink flesh bare to the cold.

"My fault, really," Max was saying.

The burning was fading. Pleasant, muscle melting, glorious warmth. But Max was hurt, Max was…burnt.

And Max had turned frantic.

"Really, Kai, it was just an accident—completely on my part. I just slipped on some ice, I'll be okay. What's most important is that you—No! Stay in there! You were freezing to death! STAY! Don't make me burn myself to punch you back in there!"

Kai fell back down in the steel drum he didn't remember getting into. His legs had been reluctant to hold him at all anyways. So sleepy. So warm. So sick. So sick and—no, Tala, the others.

He had taken in the familiar sight of the ship front deck.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed at Max. "The navy—"

"Are fast approaching, Captain," said Max with a hard grimace. He was trying to hide his arm from Kai, even while tears ran down his face.

Kai frowned. He didn't want to know. "Has Tala reached here?"

"Not yet."

"Then get to Ayah, see what she can do about your arm."

Max nodded, still with that watery, pained smile, and stumbled off into the night. Kai watched him through closing eyes. There was so much more he wanted to ask of Max, so much more he had forgotten—the light guy. Ayah. Tala. Ray.

Despite Max's insistence, he took hold of the side of the barrel and heaved himself up. Someone had had the good idea to take all his clothes off, though, and the first touch of arctic air made him scream and drop back into the barrel. Angry, exhausted tears blurred his vision.

"Useless," he growled. "So damn useless!"

And just to add insult to injury, he had to stick his head into the cold in order to avoid throwing up half-digested caribou into his lap.

They were going to die. They were all going to die and he was stuck naked in a steel barrel, puking. He'd almost frozen to death to get here, for nothing. They were all going to die, him included.

The tears evaporated as soon as they came into being. He creaked his eyes open to look up into the darkness of the sky. His fire drowned out all the stars.

If he was going to die, he at least wanted to die by their side. By Tyson's, Max's, Ray's, Tala's…and Ayah's.

It was maddening, sitting there, trying to stay awake through sheer will alone just in case they needed him. But in the quiet night, the only activity he saw was from the light of the control cabin above. Bits and pieces of dreams and memories drifted past his mind's eye until they slowly converged into something most definitely dreamlike. He was seeing Ayah as he never had before, out in the open with her wings out, dressed in white and dancing on a field of soft green grass. She held her open palms to a blue sky that would never limit her.

Russian summers. Popping grass. Soft gray hair and a presence little more than memory.

A great boom shoved him sideways, steel drum and all. Coal flew out like flaming volcanic rubble, only to spit and die in the subzero air.


	12. Freeze or Burn

**Here's the second of the two chapters I've posted today. If it don't make since, you've missed chapter 9. Enjoy!**

10

As the cold crushed in, like water to burning lava, Kai curled in on himself, adrenaline spiking his blood and ramming white hot heat into his limbs. He thought he could hear the sound of a small engine and hoped it to be a snowmobile, but otherwise was overcome by the great groaning of the metal ship as it tipped.

 _Not into the water!_

Fueled by the sure knowledge that he and every last one of them would die if they fell into those arctic waters, he scrambled to his feet, skin alight like gold in the night, feathers burning brilliant scarlet.

And rocketed up in a fell swoop of wings.

His heart raced, pumping more and more fire into his system as the flames in his steel drum went cold as it rolled across the deck. He shot towards the control room door, throwing sparks across the side. Flapping to stay upright, he tore open the door to receive an armful of bewildered Ayah. In the gloom of the flickering light of the cabin, he made out no others.

"Where are they?" he asked over the groaning of the ship.

"Tyson's with Eiden in the back cabin," she gasped. "They hit—there's a hole—"

"Then this ship is lost." The sound of the little engine had grown closer than ever. "Get on shore. Meet up with Ray and Tala and run."

The whole boat shuddered and the lights went out.

Her pale hands twisted against his bare chest.

"You need a coat! You'll freeze!" she cried.

"Not right away, I won't. Go!"

Biting her lip, eyes wide with fear, she slipped past him and caught herself with a quick pump of her wings. Even as he kicked off, half an eye on her, he could feel the cold pressing hard against his film of heat, waiting to swallow him whole.

Ocean splattered on him like knives. But he found the door, even at a 45 degree angle, and tore it open.

"Tyson!"

"It's sideways!" squawked a terrified dragon somewhere in the darkness.

"Stop freaking and get out of here. You can fly, can't you? Get to Ray and Tala!"

"But what about—"

"I'll get him, just go!"

Like a slither of silk, Tyson shot past him as Kai squeezed himself in. The glow of his skin and feathers helped him to find the other young man, encompassed about by heat packs and heavy cotton quilts. Lifting him was, once more, like lifting a bundle of feathers and bones, and Kai's chest ached as he hauled the other man back outside and took back off into the air.

BOOM.

Water sprayed up. Pain, sheer blades of agony, tore across his flesh where it touched. Black streaked out across his glow and he screamed so hard and quick he tasted blood in his mouth. In the coiling and constricting of his muscle spasm, he somehow managed to use them to clutch Ayah's brother tighter to his chest.

Then he hit the deck—hard, wetness, icy agony, rolling against the railing where he hung, clutching the unconscious light denizen and staring at the black waters rushing up to him. Out across the water stood a looming, blinking monstrosity. Even as his brain told him _battleship_ , he saw a sea monster, vast and toothed and ravenous.

A keening, whistling noise, like the wind through the reed, whistled across the crashing water, pitching until it became a heart rending flute. As more water splashed onto him, dimming his heat back within him and breathing the frost into his flesh once more, the flute wavered in a whimsical, undirected song.

White streaked out beneath him, cold as he had only once known blackened his vision. He clung to the bundled man in his arms as the white spread, freezing waves mid leap, reaching for the ever encroaching sea beast.

 _Have to stay warm_! He furiously stoked his inner flame, squeezing and pushing even as his consciousness rolled black with pain.

And then, just beneath where he hung, a familiar thin figure walked beneath him, hair as bright as his feathers had once been.

Tala, standing on the frozen ocean, held his hands up to him.

"Kai," he said in the cool, measured calm. "Get back in the ship. Max won't let it sink. You have to get out of the cold."

But Kai knew he wouldn't be able to move, even as Tala said it. He had gotten too far, frozen too much, and he couldn't leave him behind.

Tala's expression stretched down, eyes widening, mouth opening like a shy bird's.

For a split second, Kai saw the child Tala that stood in his doorway and silently screamed.

"Just try until I get there," he said instead.

But then Kai felt more than heard the landing of another weight, and mere seconds after he felt strong, clawed hands scoop under his arms. Tala's face went lax.

"I've got you," Ray panted. "Let go, I can't carry both of you. It will only be for a moment."

Kai didn't even have a choice in the matter. His grip crumbled beneath Ray's strength. Strong arms half dragged, half carried him into the darkness, threw him down on something soft, wrapped more soft about him until it left to return with another's body.

Another boom shook the night, but the boat did not move. Only inwardly moaned.

Swaddled and away from the water, Kai fought against unconsciousness and turned all his attention inward to his fire. The cold nearest to it ached the most, but he curled as tight in as he could, wrapping his wings about him till his joints popped and feathers overlapped twice in several places.

Slowly, but surely, the heat crawled out again.

"Ayah."

Kai jerked, but didn't dare raise his head outside his cocoon, even as he felt the other bundle next to his begin to move.

"Ayah… _Ayah…_ "

The man's attempts to get out of bed were ruined as a great crack pushed the ship back, tilting the boat the other way. The light weight of Eiden pushed him up against the wall. A heavy thrumming rumbled up from the deep and a crack of light made its way through a part in his feathers right above his head. He couldn't've uncoiled his neck, even if he had wanted to.

The bundle besides him shuddered and went still.

And so did Kai—down, down into the freezing darkness.


	13. Rescue by Storm

**Thanks for the reviews. It warms my heart and gives me a purpose to write to hear that someone is reading my story. And yes, a ice cold butt is worth getting you updates on time. :P Though luckily I managed to get to the library this time.**

 **Enjoy!**

11

 _"Find a safe place for your future. That's all you must worry about now."_

He would have not even paid any attention to what the voice was saying if the words hadn't come with a tendril of promising warmth. Kai followed it like a starved dog on the scent of cooked sausage. His conscious mind could comprehend little more.

The trail grew thicker, coalescing on a larger source, which Kai pressed himself against with as much strength as he could muster. He didn't realize that the warmth was stroking his hair until it said again, soft as low flames on coals, " _Find a safe place for your future. That's all you must worry about."_

Instead of spending the energy to respond, he just sighed, long and hard.

There was no place on Earth that would be safe for them. As long as there were satellites in the sky and wars to be won, they would always be hunted, and he didn't even entirely know why. Other than to become weapons, of course. Always weapons.

 _Ironic_ , he thought dimly. _I escaped the Abbey, only to end up a tool just the same. Freedom. What a joke._

 _"Then leave Earth,"_ whispered the heat. As warm nails of fire scratched along his scalp, he shivered.

"And what, go live on the moon?"

" _Find the one of space and time."_

"How? By hunting down every beyblader on the planet—all while keeping alive, mind you." He already knew who he was talking to. That didn't make it any less brilliant when he looked up at the flaming persona of Dranzer, all white fire and severe features. He thought he could make out the pink tracings of a smile.

" _Dizzara and her kind tend to shy from actual combat."_

He jerked up from her lap, stunned Dranzer had given him the answers so easily, but as he did so her light vanished, leaving him staring at the undersides of his dark red eyelids at some unseen light. Her warmth, however, didn't, even covering his entire front half.

Next came the pain. Every muscle in his body ached from being cramped up to preserve heat, and the places where the arctic water had splashed on him burned.

Groaning, he opened his eyes to whiteness. A few clearing blinks clarified, not snow, but a messy bob of white hair above the edge of a sleeping bag. Ayah. They both laid on the bed of a cabin that look suspiciously like the same tug boat they had come here on, in a cocoon made of two sleeping bags zipped together, wings and all.

Overwhelming relief at her presence shut his eyes for another dip into slumber. He would have gone too if he hadn't realized, with perfect clarity, that both he and her were naked.

His face went as hot as the sun.

 _Why does it always have to be naked? Yeah clothes are flammable and hypothermia and all that bunk, but really!?_

She was soft as downy, her breasts round pillows against his chest. She had nuzzled her face against his throat in the night.

He squirmed, only to find the air outside painfully cold and recoiled back in as his muscles protested in sharp, knife-like twists.

She stirred at his movement, and her legs shifted an inch or so from where they had twisted about his.

At that point, his brain turned off. He felt like lead weighted crud that had been left to freeze at the North Pole. If there was any moment his enemies wanted to immobilize him completely, this would be it.

He closed his eyes in an attempt to go back to sleep and, surprisingly, succeeded, as the next thing he knew he was groggily waking up to a ravenous stomach and a bare body that so did not feel like Ayah.

In his defense, he'd put up with more physical contact over the past two weeks than he had in his entire lifetime. But despite his aching muscles filled with lead and the freezing air outside the sleeping bag, he flipped, writhing like a mad man for the zipper.

Tyson, the unfortunate sod who had decided to keep a hypothermic Kai warm in the arctic, got several feathery whacks to the face and more than one pointy body bit in the gut. Thus, even when Kai managed to get out of the sleeping bag, he didn't succeed in getting away from Tyson, as the dragon was intent on punching the wind out of him.

"You nearly freeze to death and I help save your life and you thank me by freaking out on me? What is your DEAL!? How long have we been friends? What happened to all that discipline you brag about? That HURT!?"

Tyson ended each statement with a kick or a slap, or whatever was easiest for the drowsy dragon. Kai's sore muscles caught up with him and he just endured it, wincing.

"Where's Ayah?" he asked, once Tyson seemed to be winding down.

He gave Kai a glare. "Oh, so you remember that?"

"Just tell me where she is."

"She's with her brother, freak. Dude could be dying for all I know, he looks like a freaking Holocaust survivor."

And if Tyson had still felt the need to strip to his scavenged army briefs to keep Kai warm, how much more would Ayah feel her skin and bone brother needed the same treatment?

A surge of ice-hot acid struck up within him, winding around his chest and throat, and he rode it through his shiver-injured muscles to his feet.

"Where's my clothes?"

"By the dresser," said Tyson grumpily, rubbing his head where Kai's wing had beat it against a wall. "Go ahead and freeze, for all I care."

But though Tyson said that, after Kai had finished dressing and was pulling on his boots, he muttered, "Your coat's in the closet by the door."

Kai tied his laces and went to the closet. As his hand touched the soft leather and furs of the long trench coat, he hesitated.

"Sorry," he said.

Tyson snorted. "Yeah, figure out a way to get me some real food and I might forgive you."

Despite the ugly acidic turmoil within him, he flashed Tyson a tight grin before pulling on his coat and heading outside into the cold morning.

He only got five steps before his body force seized him in half from the cold. His wings, despite being covered in feathers, felt naked, and the touch of air was sheer agony.

Gasping, trembling so hard he bit his tongue, he stumbled back into his room and collapsed onto the floor. Even as Tyson hurried to his side, Kai started up a stream of curses.

"Relax, man, you're fire now. You need heat, and it's like, what, negative something out there. You're not a super hero."

He threw off Tyson's hands, but it was half-heartedly. The feel of his friend's hands through his feathers had been warm, and his body leaned towards Tyson without his permission.

But the ugly, acidic feeling didn't leave. It only intensified. He bit his lip hard as his own physical weakness powered the pain to something overwhelming.

"Come on. Bed. You're shaking bad," said Tyson.

"I have to get to Ayah," he gasped.

He could almost hear Tyson rolling his eyes. "I get it that you're crazy about her, but seriously."

"It's not that."

"How can it not be that?"

And because it was Tyson—and ONLY Tyson—and because every part of him was aching and he was so beyond damn tired, he murmured, "Her brother's her fiancé."

Tyson dropped Kai unceremoniously on the bed. Kai obediently curled up into the tightest feathery cocoon he could manage.

"Okay, you're obviously feverish or something. Shove over, will you? I can't get the blanket on you like this."

"I'm not delusional," he pushed out through chattering teeth. "She told me herself. And now she's—she's—"

Tyson pushed him back when Kai made a move to roll off the bed. Despite his body's insistence that he had gone too far this time, the acidic need to fly, to run and breathe fire and do _something_ shouted at him to move—and at the same time, throw himself into a dark hole and never come out again.

As the dragon held him down through a mass of scarlet feathers, their eyes met.

Tyson blinked. "Oh gosh, you're serious."

Scowling, Kai shuffled out from the dragon's claws and went for option B of hiding himself in a dark hole, starting first with his wings and a blanket.

Tyson made a gagging noise. "Her brother? Seriously? EWW!"

Kai made a noncommittal grunt.

"So she's—but that's just—come on, she grew up with the dude in the same house! Doesn't that make it, I don't know, psychologically impossible? Wait, no, hold on, isn't she with you? Like…you didn't just make out because there's nothing to do on this ship, right?"

Kai kicked out through the feathers. His aim was pretty good for not seeing a thing and Tyson went off the bed hard. He didn't proceed to start calling Kai every mean name he could think of, though. Rather, he just laid there quietly.

"Look, buddy," he started after a few minutes, before hesitating.

"Just say it," said Kai darkly.

"That's sucks. You're girl lay'n with another dude. Not like that, but, you know, hypothermia crap. That's like a chapter out of half of Hillary's bodice ripper books."

"You can stop talking now."

"It probably don't mean anything, though. I mean, it's pretty obvious she's crazy about you, and isn't there that whole 'you die if you cheat' crap they got going on? Wait, Ray and Max told me that was bogus."

Kai didn't even want to know how Ray and Max had heard of it in the first place.

"Whatever, you still got nothing to worry about. I mean, come on, the guy is starving white string cheese with nothing new to offer. You're mysterious and cool and have a killer body—and that weird shiny tan you got going on—and you came out of a volcano! Chicks dig volcanoes."

"Seriously, stop talking."

"Just trying to help you feel better." But he was only quiet for a full minute. "You know, I get how you feel. I mean…Hillary was always crazy about you…and then all those times you saved her when I was just…"

Kai actually managed to pull himself from his own brooding to listen to this.

"You like Hillary?"

Tyson let out a humorless 'heh.' "Why you acting so surprised?"

Kai didn't need to answer that. Tyson was the daily comedy special with his attempts at flirting anything female that dared to pass him.

"Thing you got to keep telling yourself, buddy, is that if it happens, it happens. You can't control other people's feelings. I mean, you, Max, and Ray walked out on me at the last beyblade tournament, even though it totally tore me up. But we were still friends. We were still the Bladebreakers."

"I'm not seeing your point," said Kai dryly.

"…yeah…I guess I'm not really making a point."

Great. Now Tyson was depressed. At least it would give Kai something else to focus on besides his own growing need to throw the scrawny light denizen overboard the first chance he got.

But there wasn't even anything he could really say to help Tyson feel better. As he had said, Kai had walked out on him more times than Max and Ray ever did, and been the only one to full out betray him. If Tyson wanted to hear that he could rely on his friends to always be there for him, Kai was the wrong person to say it. Kai still had a hard time some days believing friends were anything but a liability.

But as the silence grew longer, Kai remembered Tyson in the sky, his long, messy black hair like a lion's mane about him and his eyes bright with tears. Every white tooth had been bared at Kai, even if the words that came from them were breaking with desperate sincerity.

 _'Don't you dare.'_

The bed springs squeaked and Tyson's weight appeared somewhere near his feet. When Kai realized the arm pressing against the sole of his foot was shivering, he let out a long sigh.

"Come here," he grunted, unwinding his wings from around him and getting his first view of Tyson curled on his side with his back to him. At least he was dressed now in shirt and the army cargo jeans. His long scaled tail wrapped above a thigh with its tip dangling off the side of the bed between them, the nubs already dangerously close to sharpened knives.

Sighing again and bracing himself, Kai reached down and both shoved Tyson up at the same time as scooted himself down. Tyson started to protest, then let out a shocked breath of pleasure as Kai brought his wings down around them both.

"How can you still be so _warm_?"

Kai didn't say anything, busy coercing his own repulsion at the feel of Tyson against him again. He forced himself to keep his arms around the boy in order to bring him closer to his chest. Before locking them down in his cocoon for good, he reached down and threw the mass of blankets over them.

"Thanks," said Tyson.

"Hn."

"No, really. I know how non-touchy you are. I get it. You don't have to hug me."

Kai didn't need the invitation. He shot his arms back and stuffed them in-between his chest and Tyson's back.

Tyson chuckled.

Still, Kai didn't feel like it was enough. He could practically still smell the sadness off of Tyson. It irritated him.

After all, the kind of debt he owed Tyson went far beyond snatching him out from committing suicide.

But he couldn't even promise Tyson that he'd never betray him. Not that he wanted to—not ever again, no way. Not that he wanted Tyson to know that—crap, he sucked at this mushy, useless friendship schmuck. But Kai didn't even trust himself to make the right choice. He had tested himself with power before and passed, but that didn't mean he could easily forget the way the temptation had felt.

Even as he thought that, more memories floated to his mind, and not all of Tyson. He also remembered little Tala and his open mouthed, silent scream. He remembered the feel of the rough blankets as he had slid from his bed and gone towards Tala, his hands out, his jaw dropping in a similar cry. Something horrible had happened to the little red head in the Abbey that had held tight to his pant-leg. And Kai couldn't do anything at all. Nothing.

Clenching his eyes closed, Kai pulled his face the barest millimeter closer to Tyson's hair. He didn't have to go far. It was already right there anyways.

"You are the last person who will ever have to worry about being alone or betrayed," he said.

"Where'd that come from?" Tyson asked.

Kai said nothing, already pulling his face back as far as it could go from the greasy black mess.

But after a while, when Kai drifted to that very last edge of consciousness where dreams begin to take over your thoughts, he thought he heard the smallest whisper.

"Right back at you, buddy."

 **Author's Note: And here's the end of "Ice"! Tune in next week for "Before Beasts, There Was Light." ^.^ And please let me know what you think so far, for good or bad. Your thoughts and reviews are my bread and butter. Much love. Much ice. Much well wishing.**

 **Now, to continue writing...**


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